[by Nathalie Heinich]

We are reproducing here the text published in The Express : [Read more on the Express website]

Is this story of female footballers demanding the right to wear the veil in competition anecdotal? Quite the opposite: just like the case of the three veiled high school girls in Creil in 1989, it constitutes a decisive moment, especially during an election period. 

Facts

Background. Rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter requires neutrality during sports competitions so that they are protected from political or religious divisions. For the same reason, the French Football Federation prohibits "any sign or outfit that ostentatiously displays political, philosophical, religious or union affiliation". However, in November, a group of self-proclaimed "hijab women" footballers, formed two years ago as a "Muslim women's football union", brought an action before the Council of State to have this article repealed. The request was rejected but it continues to be examined on the merits. 

In the second week of February the issue was back in the news, with an amendment proposed by the Senate that would ban the wearing of the Islamic veil in sports competitions: hence the protests of the followers of this outfit – a demonstration of the Hijabeuses was even banned for risk of disturbing public order. They were supported by a platform of high-level footballers published on February 9 by Libération, as well as, paradoxically, by the Human Rights League. 

We are waiting for the vote of the deputies.

A major divide

The political importance of the case is measured by its power to divide, not only between political sensibilities but also within the parties themselves, and particularly within the presidential majority. Thus, on February 10, the Minister Delegate for Gender Equality, Elisabeth Moreno, stated on a television show that women "have the right to wear an Islamic veil to play". Immediately afterwards, Gabriel Attal declared that the Government did not share this position, and on February 15, Marlène Schiappa, Minister Delegate for Citizenship, also took issue with her colleague's remarks. Some LREM deputies also contradicted Elisabeth Moreno by invoking the need to combat sexist discrimination carried out and symbolized by the veil. They were supported by various secular groups, notably the Comité Laïcité République (https://www.laicite-republique.org/la-neutralite-religieuse-sur-les-terrains-de-foot-protege-rassemble-et-unit-clr.html) and the Secular Unity association (https://unitelaique.org/index.php/2022/02/12/resistons-aux-exigences-islamistes-non-madame-la-ministre-le-port-de-signes-religieux-dans-une-enceinte-sportive-nest-pas-neutre/), who published press releases to this effect on February 11 and 12.

The divide was also played out within the feminist movement itself: while Alice Coffin, a Parisian environmentalist elected official, supported the demands of the Hijabeuses, the International Women's Rights League (founded by Simone de Beauvoir) protested against this trivialization by the veil of a form of "sexual apartheid", and even called the Hijabeuses "whiners". Within the daily life itself Libération The positions are contrasting, since the journalist Luc Le Vaillant, in a column published on February 14, affirmed that in this fight it is the defenders of the veil who are on the right and its detractors, the universalists, who embody the left...

A deeply political question

Such deep divisions are rare in our country. They clearly signal a fundamental problem, which politicians would do well to take seriously. 

The case is indeed similar in many ways to that of the headscarf of the high school girls of Creil in 1989, which we understand in retrospect caused a deep rift within the left, between those who supported the wearing of the veil in the name of individual freedoms and "support for stigmatized Muslims", and those who wanted to ban it in the name of freedom of conscience, in the name of the freedom of Muslim women to escape community pressures, and in the name of equality between men and women of which the Islamic veil represents the antithesis. The latter finally won by obtaining in 2004 the vote of the law banning the wearing of religious symbols in schools. It is therefore this fight that is being replayed today, no longer in schools but on sports fields.

However, the case is not just a repeat of the Creil case, because many things have changed since then. First of all, we now have experience of the effects of restrictive legislation: contrary to the catastrophic predictions of the pro-veil, the law has not caused the mass withdrawal of young Muslim girls from school – a handful of them at most have had to follow distance learning. Let us take a leaf out of this book and not lend a complacent ear to those who today predict the desertion of football pitches by young girls (who still have the possibility of removing their veil in competition, as they do when entering a school establishment).  

Moreover, for a generation, the question of the outward signs of belonging to the Muslim religion has taken on its full political significance with the spectacular rise in power of fundamentalist currents of Islam, Salafism and the Muslim Brotherhood, whose specialists are well aware of the work of entryism intended to impose – on Muslims even more than on non-Muslims – a political version of their religion, whose laws should, according to them, prevail over those of the Republic. One only has to listen to the warnings of victims of Islamism, such as the Algerian writer Kamel Daoud, to understand to what extent resistance is essential. 

To not see this today, we must either have the blindness of ideologues, or the naivety of those who let themselves be frightened by the blackmail of Islamophobia, or the duplicity of those who flirt with Islamism to ensure an additional electorate. The veil over the eyes comes to cover, in every sense of the word, the veil over the hair: the cries of female footballers demanding to be able to cover their hair are mirrored by the acquiescence of those who prefer to cover their faces so as not to see the problem.

A European issue

The problem? We know it well, however: the wearing of the Islamic veil may well, at the individual level, be claimed as an affirmation of the freedom of women to display their religion and to dress as they please; the fact remains that it calls into question the freedom of Muslim women to not to veil oneself. In fact, it exercises, at the collective level, a normalization of the public space, where unveiled women become the targets of stigmatizing treatment: they would necessarily be "immodest", therefore exposed to aggression (ocular, verbal or even physical) from those for whom visible hair can only be an incitement to lust. Furthermore, the veil is also the symbol of an unequal conception of the relationship between men and women, which makes us regress several centuries. Finally, it establishes a visible dissociation between those for whom religion must be the object of propaganda, and those who respect the French tradition of discretion in the display of signs of religious affiliation, a pledge of unity in the same citizenship.

This is why it would be a shame for France, the country of human rights, if it were to give in to the blackmail of so-called "Islamophobia" that is customary for the propagandists or useful idiots of Islamism and its political program. It would be a shame for France if it were to become an accomplice to those who try to impose in the public space practices that are both contrary to freedom of conscience and the freedom to escape community pressures (freedoms that women, in other countries, sometimes pay for with their lives), contrary to gender equality, and contrary to fraternity, which requires that we highlight what unites us to the detriment of what separates us. 

And let us not believe that this question only concerns France: on the contrary, it is a global issue, as Islamism has spread its ramifications to many Western countries. But it concerns our country above all because it, through its republican tradition, is at the forefront of the universalist fight consisting of granting rights only to individuals as citizens but not as members of communities, whatever they may be. What is therefore being played out on this booby-trapped football field is the fight between the multiculturalist model, very present in the Anglo-Saxon world, and the universalist model of which France is the spearhead – something that the Islamists know well, having made our country the preferred target of their maneuvers and attacks. This is to say that the blow being played out here is a historic blow. 

A bit of political politicking

And for those whom these grand principles are not enough to convince, let us conclude with some tactical reflections for the parties present in the next elections.

I am one of the many (although not always audible) supporters of a republican, universalist and secular left, who have become aware of the Islamist danger and are trying to persuade their fellow citizens – of all tendencies but especially of the left because blindness is more developed there – that this fight concerns us all and must mobilize us all, including Muslims who are victims of fundamentalism.

But we, secular universalists, have just been betrayed in this affair by Yannick Jadot, who took a further step in the shipwreck of the left by declaring on February 15 that we must "leave Muslims alone" and accept the wearing of the veil on football fields (probably unaware that Muslim countries authorizing the veil at sporting events are in the minority). He even shamefully opposed the "Islamists" to the "anti-Muslims" - as if the anti-Islamists were hostile to Muslims. Here we find the mantra of "no amalgamation" which for years has served as a pretext for the radical left to avoid condemning Islamism, and to avoid, for example, uttering the word "Islamist" in connection with the assassination of Samuel Paty. With my old ecological sensitivity, I voted in the environmentalist primary so that Jadot would win over Sandrine Rousseau. But I now know that I will not vote for him in the next presidential elections. And I am convinced that I will not be the only one in this case.

Will the deputies of La République en Marche make the same mistake as the ecologist candidate? By following in the footsteps of the radical left in authorizing the hijab in stadiums, they would probably not win a single vote, as voters of this tendency are determined to demonize Macron. On the other hand, they would certainly lose the votes of the republican universalists, who are currently struggling to find a political space corresponding to their convictions – as evidenced by the breakthrough of Fabien Roussel, the only left-wing candidate to hold a firmly republican discourse on these issues. The presidential majority can offer them this space, by opting today for the path of universalism, the path of secularism, which is also the path of reason if we observe the positive effects of the 2004 law. 

And so, ladies and gentlemen of the LREM deputies, be tactically intelligent even if you are not entirely convinced: be consistent with the great firmness you showed in January against the pro-hijab posters of the Council of Europe, and maintain the ban on the Islamic veil in sports competitions!