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Competing Visions of Citizenship and Integration in France's Headscarves Affair

The French headscarves affair, or ‘l’affaire du foulard,’ began with an apparently trivial local problem. In September 1989, three Muslim girls were sent home from school when they insisted on wearing their headscarves to class. As the local conflict developed into a national issue and the government became increasingly involved, much of the responsibility for handling the affair fell to Lionel Jospin, then Minister of National Education. Rather than simply banning headscarves, Jospin first tried to encourage a local, negotiated solution. When this approach failed, he announced a lenient policy whereby students would be required to attend all required courses and discouraged from wearing headscarves. If they persisted in breaking the recommended dress code, however, they were not to be expelled. Jospin’s approach met with fervent opposition, even by many Socialists, and his moderate policy proved politically difficult to sustain. He therefore soon referred the issue to the Council of State, asking it to clarify the relevant existing laws. The Council’s 27 November decision precluded a simple banning of headscarves, but otherwise resolved little. It recognized students’ legal rights to wear the controversial scarves, but nonetheless allowed school officials to forbid them if and when they were worn to proselytize, disrupted order within an educational establishment, interfered with the schools’ mission of favoring sexual equality, or caused other problems. In short, the Council’s decision was nominally liberal, but replete with loopholes. Jospin then issued new guidelines, based on the Council of State’s decision, to local school administrators. They were charged with significant case by case discretion, though their decisions were subject to review by the Council of State. The moderate, circumspect policy treatment of the issue contrasted starkly with its dramatic, sensational, and acrimonious political treatment. The intensity of French public debate during the ‘affaire’ was such that it is still of unrivaled importance in public thinking about issues of citizenship, identity, and difference in France. Ask about such issues in France today, and one will repeatedly be told about the headscarves affair; memories of the debate it provoked are of