This was written by matttbastard and originally published at bastard.logic:
I’m having trouble reconciling the following with “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”:
France has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds that her “radical” practice of Islam is incompatible with basic French values such as equality of the sexes.
[...]
The woman, known as Faiza M, is 32, married to a French national and lives east of Paris. She has lived in France since 2000, speaks good French and has three children born in France. Social services reports said she lived in “total submission” to her husband. Her application for French nationality was rejected in 2005 on the grounds of “insufficient assimilation” into France. She appealed, invoking the French constitutional right to religious freedom and saying that she had never sought to challenge the fundamental values of France. But last month the Council of State, France’s highest administrative body, upheld the ruling.
“She has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes,” it said.
The article goes on to explain the Council of State’s definition of ‘radical’:
The legal expert who reported to the Council of State said the woman’s interviews with social services revealed that “she lives almost as a recluse, isolated from French society”.
The report said: “She has no idea about the secular state or the right to vote. She lives in total submission to her male relatives. She seems to find this normal and the idea of challenging it has never crossed her mind.”
The woman had said she was not veiled when she lived in Morocco and had worn the burqa since arriving in France at the request of her husband. She said she wore it more from habit than conviction.
Someone who adheres to a non-mainstream religious practice “out of habit” rather than “conviction” doesn’t strike me as all that “radical”.
Daniele Lochak, a law professor not involved in the case, said it was bizarre to consider that excessive submission to men was a reason not to grant citizenship. “If you follow that to its logical conclusion, it means that women whose partners beat them are also not worthy of being French,” he told Le Monde.
I really do find the use of the term “radical” interesting. The connotations are that the practice of Faiza M’s beliefs somehow pose an existential threat to French society, thus the rationale behind the denial of citizenship. And it’s telling that it’s the women who always seems to be the ones who are placed in the position of having to justify their existence (damned if you do, damned if you don’t).
But what about the men to whom she has “submitted”? They are already French citizens, and seem to be facing no consequences for making such “radical” demands upon Faiza in the first place. She has, in effect, been denied agency, reduced to a wayward vessel who deserves to be punished for, in effect, not saying ‘non’ as a ‘real’ Frenchwoman would (except when they don’t, as pointed out in the article). Once again, Muslims–specifically, Muslimahs–who dare to practice their oh-so-freaky religion in ways the majority find distasteful serve as public whipping posts for the sins of the nebulous ‘other’ which, by virtue of mere existence, is apparently chipping away at the structural integrity of the liberal democratic secular state.
And that’s really all I feel comfortable saying at this point, and probably won’t comment further, apart from moderation duties. I would much prefer to hear from women–especially Muslimahs–about what they think and how they feel about this.
Thoughts?
Editor’s Note: ‘Aqoul has given their take on this. Via TalkIslam.
This just sounds like plain Islamophobia to me. The idea that she hasn’t “assimilated enough” is a racist and Islamaphobic one.
Not a muslimah, but a woman and a lawyer. I have never understood this enforced secularism they have going on over there. freedom of religion is not freedom from religion. it’s basic racism and sexism, as you outlined.
however, it’s worth noting that it is generally next to impossible, according to the laws of most countries, to strip someone of citizenship; but there are many acceptable and non legal reasons to not accept a citizen. the two standards are very different and most legal scholars and jurists accept that, and there are various strong legal reasonings behind it.
I agree with you that this decision is pure Islamophobia. You say: “The connotations are that the practice of Faiza M’s beliefs somehow pose an existential threat to French society”, and that’s exactly how it is.
France has a long-standing, but rather rigid approach to dealing with immigration – which revolves around the idea that French nationality is a kind of prize to be conferred upon an individual who has demonstrated a willingness to “integrate” – which in French terms means to put the nation’s interests before his or her own. This goes back to the Napoleonic era, and the idea that France is not just a country but a set of values (rationalist, individualist, Enlightenment values) which it is a French citizen’s duty to obey and, where possible, to propagate.
Although many French people regard these values as unchanged and unchangeable, they are of course no such thing: France was one of the last democracies to permit women’s suffrage (in 1944) or legalize abortion (in 1975). But attachment to these values is vehement and almost universal; and the French model of integration is often opposed to a somber vision of the “anglo-saxon” world which emphasizes the failure of what the French call ‘communitarianism’ – the sub-division of the nation into different ethnic or religious groups (African-American, British Muslim, etc.), which the French largely hold responsible for the Anglophone world’s high crime rates, poor race relations, educational underachievement and vulnerability to home-grown terrorism.
The French state is also very generous in terms of welfare and subsidy, based on a (highly paternalist) concept of the state as the protector and guarantor of the poor and helpless. In doing so, it ‘replaces’ religion; the rationalist argument being that, once their charitable and paternal functions were eliminated, religions would have no social role to play at all, and would become nothing more than an eccentric hobby, like naked snowboarding.
The rapid migration of Muslims, many of them from the ex-colonies, poses, as you say, a philosophical threat to the French social model. Taxpayers/voters are reluctant to subsidize families and unemployed people whom, they feel, have not ‘contributed’ to the French state. Veiled women are a visible threat to the idea that enlightenment values are universal. And the only representation of ‘Muslims’ in the media is when one of the housing projects erupts in rioting. I’ve lost count of the number of stories I’ve seen and heard of individual Muslims, male and female, breaking out of the chains that restrain others – the subtext always being that Muslims in France are held back by a combination of poverty and their own stifling, conservative culture.
Even so, the decision to refuse citizenship to Leila M is shocking. Opinion in the press is divided, with the defendant painted as a victim by all sides – either of a judicial system that punishes the poor rather than helping them, or of a backward, misogynistic religion and culture.
I’m not a Muslim but I’m a French citizen, and I’m embarrassed and angered by the whole episode. In this country we cannot face reality: we cannot confront our imperial heritage, we make no effort to understand anything about the cultures of the people who have migrated to our country, and we still don’t even know how many Muslims there are in France, because the government refuses to include the question in its census, as it is apparently “irrelevant”.
Last month the mainstream political monthly L’Express ran a special issue entitled ‘The rise of Islam in Europe: everything you need to know’; the introductory article compared the “inexorable rise” of Islam in Europe to “the beginnings of Communism in Lenin’s time”, and went on to deal with the “worrying” tendency for Europeans to “abandon their own values” in the face of the “threat of radical Islam”. It added that, for Muslim women, the rise of Islamism had proved to be “liberticide”.
(http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/enqu-ecirc-te-sur-la-mont-eacute-e-de-l-islam-en-europe_483223.html)
I fear that Leila M is not going to be the last victim of French Islamophobia.
This just sounds like plain Islamophobia to me. The idea that she hasn’t “assimilated enough” is a racist and Islamaphobic one.
Yeah, that’s how I saw it, too.
Thanks for the pick-up, btw–I am, as I mentioned to Fatemeh, honoured.
- mb
What about the woman not integrating into French society?
Isn’t that racist, Westernophobic AND France-o-phobic?
“she lives almost as a recluse, isolated from French society”
That should mean that social recluses who barely hang out with other people deserve to lose their citizenship as well? The French government has seriously lost its mind. I mean, at least come up with a better argument!?
What about respecting French culture?
Their reasoning would also mean that any sexist man (or woman) does not deserve to be a French citizen, and anyone who engages in a total power exchange BDSM relationship doesn’t belong either. also anyone antisocial or anyone with a mental disease that doesn’t allow them to leave their house.
Their forced secularism is just as bad as this imagined threat of forced Islamic fundamentalism. I have no problem with the separation of church and state, but I do have a problem with the state controlling the church, which is what France is and has been doing when it comes to how they deal with Muslim women.
Anonymous: “What about respecting French culture?”
What is French culture? Don’t the estimated 3.5 – 5 million Muslims who live legally in France form and express part of it, in all their diversity? If I eat at McDonalds or take no interest in national politics, am I disrespecting French culture? Should I be deported?
Moreover, there should be no legal basis for refusing someone citizenship for cultural reasons. French law is very clear about this:
“Nobody should be afraid about their opinions, even religious ones, so long as their expression does not trouble public order as established by the law.” (Human Rights Declaration 1789, now Article 10 of the Constitution.)
The judgment on Leila M. was that her behavior and appearance contravened this article – in other words, by her beliefs and (in)actions, she represented a danger to “public order”. Clearly, Leila is a danger to no-one except, arguably, herself; but this judgment clearly considers that she represents a symbolic threat to “public order” in the form of what the anonymous poster here calls “French culture”.
In a French context, Islamophobia is not only about religion but also race, history, globalization, immigration and urbanization. For instance, polls show that the French have been by and large supportive of Kosovan and Palestinian freedom fighters, and opposition to the Iraqi war was almost universal. Yet the incessant media portrayal of France’s own Muslims is that they are poor, uneducated, under-employed, indifferent to the law, violent, increasingly numerous, and susceptible to extremist proselytizing.
The originality of the Leila M judgment is that, by representing her as an alien threat to public order, the state can deny her citizenship, which means she is not eligible for protection under the Constitution, which “guarantees equality of all citizens before the law, without making a distinction according to origins, race or religion. It respects all beliefs.”
emmaculate, don’t you believe that it should be the immigrants to integrate into the french society, not the other way around? that should answer your questions about what is french culture.
Colonization= The process by which people demand conformity to their group’s ideas and values in a territory ruled by others.
anonymous, the problem with “assimilation” is that it requires the abandonment of an immigrant’s own traditions and cultural practices, which is insensitive at least. If France guarantees freedom of religion, then how can they turn away a woman because of how she practices her religion?
Your comments suggest that France really “belongs” to the “true French” (those you say are not immigrants or French citizens of X ancestry), instead of France belonging to all of its citizens, including those who are other other ethnicities and immigrants. This is not acceptable in a socialist democracy: a country should belong to ALL its peoples, not just the white, non-Muslim ones.
Anonymous: It depends what you mean by ‘integrate’. As far as I can tell, Leila M has broken no French law at all, and as an individual she poses a threat to no French citizen – only to some vague and contestable concept of ‘French culture’.
I’d argue that the problem stems from the (arbitrary) cultural opposition made between ‘France’ and ‘Islam’. If the state interprets the law in such a way as to exclude people like Leila M, then it is forcing many Muslims to make an either/or choice that they would and should not have to.
Setting up cultural ‘tests’ that non-natives must pass is a vintage, colonial-era technique to belittle them or deny them the same rights that the natives have. Either renounce your culture and join us, or keep your attachment to it and remain part of a society that is excluded and inferior. It instantly makes me think of the “grandfather clause”.
Zeynab, was your reference to France as a socialIST democracy intentional? :)