Natalie Dabkowski

The Headscarf Controversy: A Catholic Legacy

2018 Civics Prize in Expository Writing

In 2004, the French government instituted a ban on clothing and symbols of religious affiliation in public schools.[1] In 2011, the government followed with legislation banning all types of full-face covering in public spaces, targeting the burqa (a full-face veil that typically covers a woman’s entire body) and niqab (a veil that covers the face except for eyes).[2] Highly controversial and politically divisive, these bans have garnered both support and opposition from women’s rights activists, religious affiliates, lawmakers, and the public.[3] The issue has been argued on two overlapping fronts. First, much of the discussion has centered around principles of laïcité, a distinct French tradition of secularism characterized by the removal of religion from the public sphere and protection of the public from religious imposition.[4] In the early 2000s, both French media and politicians alike began to portray Islam and its external symbolic manifestations as threats to this carefully cultivated secularism.[5] Second, Islam, as embodied in the headscarf, has in various instances become a symbol of subjugation and repression, cast as a threat to secularly normed values of female equality and civil participation. For example, in 2003, the Stasi Commission appointed by then President Jacques Chirac cited the oppression of women and Islamic radicalism as foundations for limiting the wearing of headscarves by Muslim women, indicating an incompatibility between this particular characterization of Islam and French society.[6]

Although these two approaches differ in outward reasoning, they both have roots in a broader French understanding of religion, one that has traditionally been grounded not in the exclusion of Islam, but in a complicated engagement with Catholicism. Laïcitétraces back to the rejection of Catholic clerical influence and separation from the papacy in the fourteenth century, and concepts of religious oppression date back to Catholic subjugation of French Protestants in the sixteenth century.[7] The dominant historic influence of Catholicism on French society suggests that current French restrictions on religious expression are less a modern phenomenon of discrimination or cultural clash, and more a product of the historic absence of a holistic definition of religion in France, a holistic definition that would include a faith-based understanding of religion among groups of French people,  as well as between the people and the government.[8] As Catholicism developed in France, it was defined as a political tool by the government for use in advancing governmental goals, as well as a political force that needed government control in order to preserve the state, but there was no holistically shared understanding of religion as either a faith-based or political construct between the French people and the French government. In this way, Catholicism was relegated to the political sphere, a construction which the French government now enforces with respect to Islam. 

Catholicism has historically been harnessed by the French government to advance political goals, in an understanding of religion as a state-controlled political construct distinct from any popular characterization of religion as grounded in faith. This is particularly clear in the fourteenth century relationship between the French state and the papacy, where Catholicism was a contested form of political influence. The papacy consistently expanded its influence and power,  reaching a “zenith of power” in the fourteenth century as it gained significantly greater influence through the appointment of benefices (clerical posts that provided income and property),even in spite of governmental rulings, and evolved into a robust bureaucratic institution with increased territorial dominance.[9] In the latter half of the century, however, the Roman Catholic Church underwent a schism advanced by its increased political interference and financial strength, leading to the establishment of popes Benedict XIII in France and Boniface IX in Rome.[10] Without indicating allegiance to the Roman pope and while pulling support from the French pope in Avignon as he was no longer “acting in the interest of the common good,” French King Charles VI separated the church from French government, an ideology that would be reinforced in the eventual establishment of councilor oversight over papal interference in France.[11] In other words, the French government was continuously caught in a struggle between the influence of religion and maintenance of independent government interests, leading religion to take on a political definition for the government. As the papacy became a dominant political force, the French government began to support the imposition of state restrictions on religious hierarchy to curtail papal influence.[12] In this way, for the government, Catholicism assumed a political definition, as a means of managing trade, foreign relations, and domestic interests, in contrast to any definition extending from faith. The threat of the papacy pushed the government to view Catholicism as a mechanism for political influence to be both resisted and channeled to augment governmental control, in contrast to a faith-based construct, and it is this absence of a holistic definition and resultant friction between a political construction and a faith-based understanding of religion which continues to drive French governmental administration of religions like Islam today.

The governmental understanding of religion as a state-driven political element for furthering a broader agenda is even more closely reflected in the religious wars of the late sixteenth century, in which Catholicism as a political concept was utilized by the government to impose a large scale program of political control over French inhabitants.[13] The Reformation saw the rise of Calvinism in France, threatening the financial and political stability of ruling Catholic families.[14] In the 1560s-80s, Catholic and Huguenot (French Calvinist) friction escalated to a political dimension. Following the death of ruler Henry II, Catholics supported the powerful noble family of the Guises in the battle over control of France, while the Huguenot anti-Guise party attracted German and English support, leading to the destabilization of the existing governmental structure.[15]  Following several decades of violence, in 1598, the Edict of Nantes (edict granting substantial rights of worship and belief to the Huguenots) created a temporary peace, but the maintenance of Protestant communities with significant autonomy and the continued dominance of Catholicism in France sparked another series of violent incidents, and in the 1660s, the government began an aggressive campaign of subjugating Huguenots in the effort to exert greater national control.[16] In 1681, French King Louis XIV issued a declaration that “subjects of the pretended Reformed religion” could convert to Catholicism as young as at seven years of age and leave their parents, indicating a clear methodology of inspiring allegiance to the King through Catholicism and emphasizing the government’s prioritization of the political dimension of religion.[17] A documentation of royal persecution of Protestants authored by seventeenth-century Protestant theologian Jean Claude cites lawsuits, prohibition from taking office, riling of public sentiments against Protestants, and a royal edict forbidding all public exercise of Protestantism in public.[18] These civil and legally oriented restrictions formed the core of Catholic suppression of Protestantism in the seventeenth century, emphasizing the political construction of Catholicism in maintaining an intolerant governmental structure. For the government, religion was less a question of faith and more one of politics; Catholicism was used as a vehicle of power imposed on other religious factions by the government, with a governmental emphasis on religious factions as political threats instead of the faith-based ideas shared by adherents, setting foundations for a France with no holistically defined understanding of religion, a premise that continues to influence modern regulation of religion beyond Catholicism.

Furthermore, religion has also been cast as a political factor that warrants control by the state in order to preserve a broader national unity, as revealed in France’s historical factionalism. In the eighteenth century, despite being in the throes of post-revolutionary state building, data reveal that the national characteristics of the French language, Catholic religion, and even ethnic connection, were not really national at all. In Peasants into Frenchmen, historian Eugen Weber comments “8,381 of France’s 37,510 communes spoke no French . . . 448,328 of the 4,018,427 schoolchildren spoke no French at all.”[19] Nor was France physically integrated, as Weber cites records of a “resident’s refusal to admit that they were French” in Marseille.[20] France was heavily grounded in regional affiliation, and “the difference between Paris and the provinces [could be compared] to that between separate peoples.”[21] This wide breadth of divisions ensured that religion operated to various degrees leading up to, during, and following the revolutionary period. On the one hand, religion occupied a decidedly personal place in the lives of many French people. In Creating the Nation in Provincial France, historian Caroline Ford notes Western France was considered to have a “profound religiosity.”[22] In Lower Brittany, in particular, there was a high emphasis on close bonds between priests and parishioners, and the region was linguistically isolated from other parts of France, allowing Catholicism to flourish as a distinct unifying faith identity.[23] The same, however, cannot be said for other parts of France. For example, in 1865, the patriotic national festivities of Saint Napoleon coincided with the Catholic celebration of the Assumption, and friction occurred between that civil administration, secularists, and Catholics in the commune of Leers.[24]  Oxford specialist in French history Sudhir Hazareesingh notes, “In some places, the religious dimension of celebrations brought communities together; in others they served to highlight underlying conflicts between secular and religious camps.”[25] In other words, although traditional Catholicism was a core part of the lives of many Frenchmen, others viewed it as an imposition. There was an absence of a holistic understanding of religion among the French people, an absence that facilitated the formation of a government that by necessity would have to exert control over religion and apply ideals of secularism to preserve the state. Religion was politically contentious, not holistically defined with a shared definition, a dynamic that continues to shape modern day understanding of Islam, where faith-based characteristics of Islam cast it as a disruptor to the French state’s political construction of religion.

The two dominant perspectives in French debates on religion, the view of religion as a tool to be harnessed for political ends and the view of religion as a disruptive mechanism that needs to be controlled, culminated in the colonial era, but the end effect did not inspire a holistic definition of religion. In its forays into colonialism, the French government initially supported the dispatching of French missionaries to colonial territory, with the expressed intention that missionaries would utilize Catholicism to bolster the reach of the French state and system.[26] In this way, it sought to utilize religion to satisfy broader political aims in the colonies, as it had done domestically in the sixteenth century. However, as missionaries emphasized a distinctly faith-based character in their practices, the goal of exalting the French state came second to crafting a new religious community, inciting discomfort among secular French settlers and causing disruption.[27] In fact, the civil administration for French settlers in Algeria began to draw parallels between Catholicism and Islamic fanaticism.[28] Catholicism, understood by the government as a means to achieve political control, had turned into a threat by virtue of an increase in faith-based understanding, a disruption that undermined the ideals of the French state by fostering discontent in the colonies and challenging the governmental definition of religion.[29] The colonial religious revival and increased faith-based religious presence of Catholics in France leading into World War I was so impactful on French regulations that as the Mumbai Times reported, “The anti-clerical ministry of Mr. Combes seized the opportunity [. . .] to effect the severance of the state and the church.”[30] In this way, Catholicism once again became a point of political contention, and not a unifying characteristic defined in the same way by both the French people and the government. For the government, unlike for many of the missionaries, Catholicism was a political construct, that when it ceased to serve its purpose effectively, became subject to governmental control in the interest of preserving the state, solidifying the French religious experience in the context of political boundaries, boundaries that continue to mold the modern shape of Islam in France.

Now, over half a century has passed since the colonial movements came to an end, but due to its long historical standing, the French religious experience with Catholicism continues to play an active role in the religious attitudes of French society. The only difference is that Islam is now a fundamental element in the metropolitan French system. The circumstances may be different, but it is the same political understanding of religion developed in a historical struggle with Catholicism that frames the regulation of Islam today, casting it as both a political disruptor and tool for advancing a political agenda. 

On the one hand, the absence of a holistic French understanding of religion and governmental construction of religion as a political concept has cast Islam as a political unit distinct from faith conducive to advancing a broader ideological agenda. In reference to modern debates about wearing visible religious symbols like the headscarf, anthropologist John R. Bowen argues, “the Islam of poor suburbs is not religion, but Islamism, a political project to reshape public life around Islamic norms...the critique of the voile [headscarf] depends on the construction of Islamism as a unified, political object of study,” revealing the clear political definitions that have been ascribed to the religion.[31] This politicization of Islam is reflected in the 2010 Gerin Report commissioned by the French parliament to investigate the question of Muslim religious garments in public places.[32] Religious studies professor Jennifer A. Selby argues that in the 2010 Gerin Report,“ Islamism is never explicitly defined, but characterized pejoratively as radical, Salafist, proselytizing [. . .] communitarian [. . .]  and anti-woman,” lending Islam a distinctly political identity separate from faith roots.[33] According to Selby, the Gerin Report simplifies religion and draws the headscarf and other religious manifestations under an umbrella of political, non-faith symbols.[34] This is clearly in line with the historic French governmental construction of the concept of religion. As Catholicism was used to advance political goals by both the papacy and French government, it is now Islam that is construed as a political entity, ignoring its faith-based underpinnings. Just as Catholicism did not establish a holistic faith-based connection within a factional France and a distinct governmental entity, Islam, given its migrant status among historically entrenched French tradition, is even less able to do so, allowing for extensive politicization and construction of Islam as a vehicle for advancing political agendas.

As with Catholicism, the French government has used the political construction of Islam to advance its own governmental purpose: the maintenance of secular republican ideals. Historically speaking, when Islam first became of central importance to the French government in the colonial era, headscarves and coverings were commonly portrayed as impediments on the road to the dissemination of French ideals and the success of French civilizing education in Algeria, while refraining from the use of headscarves was extolled as advancing French values of progress.[35] The modern French approach to head coverings espouses much of the same sentiment of political purpose. Financial Times reports that in 2016, following the debate over allowing Muslim women to wear “burkinis” to the beach, Francois Hollande created a state-supported foundation to “build an Islam of France respectful of Republican values.”[36] Similarly before him, President Nicolas Sarkozy noted, “The burqa is not welcome in the French Republican territory.”[37] The prevailing perception of Islam has been, that through its regulation, and the branding of a French Islamic ideal, the government will be able to reinforce the foundations of French society and encourage a secularist, civil, Republican mentality. Just as the government once used Catholicism to control Protestants, or bring French ideals to Algeria, it now imposes restrictions on Islam to advance a message of republicanism and separation between religion and the public sphere. The French absence of a holistic definition of religion and construction of religion by the government as a political and not faith-based concept, thus plays a critical role in the enforcement of regulations on the outward expression of Islam. 

On the other hand, modern French interpretation portrays Islam as a political disruptor, an imposition of oppression and visible faith-based religiosity that warrants state control over its expression. For one, Islam, and the religious garb that accompanies it, has been cast as a form of oppression that interferes with the maintenance of a stable civil state, and thus requires regulation. In context of a French law restricting the wearing of headscarves, anthropologist John R. Bowen argues, “Proponents of the law made at least three claims: schoolgirls were pressured by men and boys to wear the voile [French term for headscarf]; the voile intrinsically attacked the dignity and equal status of women; and because it did, it encouraged violence,” illustrating the concern for Islamic political overreach into French society.[38] Islam and its physical expression was, and continues to be regarded as a political mechanism of oppression that disrupts the values of respect and free interaction upon which French society rests. In response to the “burkini” modest swimsuit controversy in 2016, The Wirereports, the French Prime Minister called the garment “the enslavement of women” revealing the friction between faith expression and what the government construes as the politically incendiary practices of Islam.[39] The modern French approach to Islam, as evidenced by the characterization of Islam as oppressive, harkens back to the colonial era, and French equation of Catholicism with a religious radicalism that destabilized fundamental French values.[40] In light of the French historical experience with Catholicism, and the portrayal of religion as a potential disruptor that warrants control in order to preserve a non-faith-based state structure, Islam is relegated to a one-sided political arena, where its expression is condemned as threatening. 

Furthermore, the expression of Islam threatens the French system in its clearly faith-based religiosity. The absence of a historic, holistic French definition of religion shared by the people and government has relegated religiosity to the periphery of society, and so it is not an active element in public interaction, facilitating the portrayal of Islam as a political disruptor that falls under state control. Historically, the absence of a clear, shared definition of religion has enabled the erosion of the outward religious elements and religiosity of adherents to Catholicism. For example, the legality of wearing Catholic soutanes was challenged in the early twentieth century.[41] In addition to developments like these, religious observance has remained low, with data collected by the Harvard Divinity School Religious Literacy Project indicating that only 4.5% of French Catholics now attend Mass.[42] This is in contrast to the 2001 data from the Brookings Institution, indicating that 20% of French Muslim adherents attended Mosque, and 36% considered themselves observant believers.[43] It is because of this that Islam has a substantially more significant religious visibility, one which headscarves and religious coverings exacerbate. With the prevailing lack of religiosity in France, Islam thus serves as a source of political disruption, much like the Catholic missionaries of the colonial era, one that the state seeks to resolve through regulation. The current restrictions on the burqa and other religious garments are thus an extension of the French religious experience with Catholicism; the absence of a strong understanding of Catholicism as a faith-based concept and the construction of religion as a political structure regulated by the state in the interest of preserving a broader national identity push the government to regulate the outward expression of Islam. 

Islam, like Catholicism before it, has been relegated to a particular structure within the French political system. Modern day regulation of Islamic religious expression is an extension of many centuries of struggle with the politicization and national acceptance of Catholicism, and just as Catholicism was relegated to the political sphere under state control over the course of history, so today is Islam. French religious regulation is not unprecedented, as the historic absence of a holistic understanding of religion has eroded many of the structures that defined Catholicism as a faith-based religion, instead shaping it within political bounds and setting a precedent for a distinct governmental approach to religion in general. Islam has been redefined within much of the same limitations that have given rise to the modern form of Catholicism adopted in France, indicating a long-term maintenance of historic trends in the relationship between the state and religion. Consequently, understanding the place Islam now occupies in the French state is predicated on evaluating the evolution of the dynamics of French Catholicism over the course of history.  

Bibliography

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Notes

[1] Bowen, John R. Why the French Don't like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007: 1.

[2] Zirulnick, Ariel. "France's Burqa Ban: 5 Ways Europe Is Targeting Islam." The Christian Science Monitor(Boston, Mass.), April 12, 2011, Accessed October 16, 2018. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2011/0412/France-s-burqa-ban-5-ways-Europe-is-targeting-Islam/France-s-burqa-ban.

[3] Scott, Joan Wallach. The Politics of the Veil. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007.

[4] Scott, The Politics of the Veil, 15.

[5] Bowen, Why the French Don't like Headscarves, 1.

[6] Bowen, Why the French Don't like Headscarves, 1.

[7] "Gallicanism." Britannica Online Academic Edition, 2017, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Accessed October 16, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gallicanism.;"Religion, Wars Of." In The Columbia Encyclopedia, by Paul Lagasse, and Columbia University. 8th ed. Columbia University Press, 2018, Accessed October 16, 2018, https://www.pin1.harvard.edu/pin/authenticate?__authen_application=HUL_ACC_MGMT_SVC&__hulaccess_gateway=ezproxy&__hulaccess_resource=zorecord&__hulaccess_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com%2Fcontent%2Ftopic%2Freligion_wars_1562_1598%3FinstitutionId%3D9468.

[8] This essay is limited in scope to the interplay between Catholicism and the political construction of religion by the French government and its ultimate impact on the administration of Islam. Consequently, analysis will not address French experience with other religions (Judaism, etc.), nor focus on the role of discrimination and ethnic divisions in influencing the religious garment controversy. These factors play a significant role in the debate over religious expression, notably in popular responses, but due to practical limitations, this paper will seek only to discuss governmental role and the legacy of Catholicism.

[9] Zutshi, P. N. R. “The Avignon Papacy.” In the New Cambridge Medieval History, ed. Michael Jones, 6:651–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, Accessed October 16, 2018, doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521362900.030.

[10] Kaminsky, Howard. “The Great Schism.” In the New Cambridge Medieval History, edited by Michael Jones, 6:674–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, Accessed October 16, 2018, doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521362900.030.

[11] "Gallicanism."Britannica Online Academic Edition. 

[12] "Gallicanism."Britannica Online Academic Edition. ; Grant, A. J. The Huguenots. Home University Library of Modern Knowledge; [171]. London: T. Butterworth, 1934: 10-11.

[13] "Religion, Wars Of," The Columbia Encyclopedia; Grant, The Huguenots,10-12, 44-9.

[14] “Religion, Wars Of," The Columbia Encyclopedia; Grant, The Huguenots,10-12.

[15] Shimizu, J. Conflict of Loyalties, Politics and Religion in the Career of Gaspard De Coligny, Admiral of France, 1519-1572. Travaux D'humanisme Et Renaissance; No 114. Genève: Droz, 1970: 9-10,  https://books.google.com/books?id=CqpvAQAACAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

[16] "Religion, Wars Of," The Columbia Encyclopedia;"Reformed Church of France." Britannica Online Academic Edition, 2017, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Accessed October 16, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Reformed-Church-of-France; Grant, The Huguenots,164-65, 168-69, 172-73.

[17] France. Sovereign. The French King's Declaration, That the Children of Those of the Pretended Reformed Religion May Change Their Religion at the Age of Seven Years. Early English Books Online. Printed at London: For Andrew Forrester ..., 1681, Accessed October 16, 2018, http://gateway.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:13546474.

[18] Claude, Jean. An Account of the Persecutions and Oppressions of the French Protestants.Early English Books Online. [London]: Printed by G.M., 1686: 2-3, Accessed October 16, 2018, http://gateway.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:image:137199.

[19] Weber, Eugen Joseph. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914. Stanford, California.: Stanford University Press, 1976: 67.

[20] Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, 98-9.

[21] Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, 97. 

[22] Ford, Caroline C. Creating the Nation in Provincial France: Religion and Political Identity in Brittany. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993: 68.

[23] Ford, Creating the Nation, 68-9.

[24] Hazareesingh, Sudhir. "Religion and Politics the Saint-Napoleon Festivity 1852-70: Anti-clericalism, Local Patriotism and Modernity." The English Historical Review119, no. 482 (2004): 614, Accessed October 16, 2018, https://doi-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.1093/ehr/119.482.614..

[25] Hazareesingh, Sudhir. "Religion and Politics the Saint-Napoleon Festivity,” 615.

[26] Francis, Kyle. Civilizing Settlers: Catholic Missionaries and the Colonial State in French Algeria, 1830-1914, 2015, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, University of New York: 2, Accessed October 16, 2018, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/docview/1629017317?accountid=11311.

[27] Francis, Kyle, Civilizing Settlers, 5-9.

[28] Francis, Kyle, Civilizing Settlers, 5-6.

[29] Francis, Kyle, Civilizing Settlers, 6-7.

[30] "Church and State in France." The Times of India (1861-current)(Mumbai, India), December 15, 1920, 10, Accessed October 16, 2018, http://search.proquest.com.ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/docview/324465344?accountid=11311.

[31] Bowen, Why the French Don't like Headscarves, 182-83. 

[32] Selby, Jennifer A. "Islam in France Reconfigured: Republican Islam in the 2010 Gerin Report." Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs31, no. 3 (2011): 383-98, Accessed October 16, 2018, https://www-tandfonline-com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/doi/pdf/10.1080/13602004.2011.599544?needAccess=true.

[33] Selby, "Islam in France Reconfigured,”386-87.

[34] Selby, "Islam in France Reconfigured,”383-98.

[35] Selby, "Islam in France Reconfigured,” 385.

[36] Anne-Sylvaine Chassany. "France: Islam and the Secular State." FT.com (London), September 15, 2016, Accessed October 16, 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/05c420b8-75a5-11e6-b60a-de4532d5ea35.

[37] Selby, "Islam in France Reconfigured,” 384.

[38] Bowen, Why the French Don't like Headscarves, 208.

[39] "French Burkini Ban Hinders, Not Liberates, Muslim Women." University Wire (Carlsbad), September 11, 2016.

[40] Francis, Kyle, Civilizing Settlers, 5-6.

[41] Anne-Sylvaine. "France: Islam and the Secular State."

[42] "Catholicism in France." Harvard Divinity School Religious Literacy Project. Accessed November 20, 2017. https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/catholicism-france.

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