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Laïcité and the Challenge of ‘Republicanism’

This article examines how, with the aid of leading French intellectuals, the debate about laïcité and the Islamic headscarf apparently became transformed into a consensus in favour of banning the garment from state schools. It shows how ‘combative laïcité’, styled by its proponents as ‘laïcité républicaine’, triumphed with the assistance of figures who, in Gramsci's terms, played the role of ‘organic intellectuals’. The volte-face of sociologist Alain Touraine is emblematic of this process. In 1989, when Régis Debray, Alain Finkielkraut and other intellectuals called for a ban on the Islamic headscarf, Touraine spearheaded a counter-manifesto in favour of ‘une laïcité ouverte’. In 2003, however, Touraine joined other members of a presidentially appointed Commission in recommending that the headscarf be banned, paving the way for legislation passed in 2004 with the support of a wide consensus among politicians, intellectuals and the public at large.