"Veil of Tears"

David Bell has an interesting review (subscribers only) in a recent issue of The New Republic John Bowen's book, Why The French Don't Like Headscarves:  Islam, the State, and Public Space.   Bell emphasizes, first, "the utter centrality of conflicts with organized religion to the identity of the French Republic, dating back to the French Revolution"; second, "the fact that in the French Republican imagination, when it comes to religion, women hold a critical and distinct place"; and third, the country's "sudden and jarring" shift away from being a Catholic country.  Later, he writes:

A more important reason [for the headscarves controversy], which Bowen also discusses, involves the complex and even deceptive nature of laïcité itself. Advocates of the concept tend to define it in terms of the separation of church and state, but in practice it has as much to do with control as with strict severance. The state may insist on keeping religion out of the public sector, but it also supports religion to an extent that Americans would find unimaginable, under the justification that religious belief in general contributes to the health of civil society. . . .

French authorities have long tried to pursue the same pattern of accommodation and control with Islam. . . .It often seems that what matters most to these officials is not an Islam separate from the Republic, but an Islam subordinate to it.

This context suggests an alternate explanation for what drove the headscarf controversy forward. The crucial factor may not be that Muslim schoolgirls were "bringing religion" into the schools, but that they were actively defying school officials. The secular state can accommodate certain "public" forms of religion, but it will not tolerate blatant religious opposition to state authority, however minor the gesture, however young the opponent. . .