Different Nation, Same Nationhood: the Challenges of Immigrant Policy

Abstract

In the fall of 1989, two girls were expelled from a junior high school in Creil for refusing to take off their Moslem headscarf in class, marking the beginning of the affaire du foulard. For months, while the rest of the West looked to Berlin and the fall of the wall, French politicians and intellectuals engaged in intense debates. In a secular public school system, could female minors harbor a religious signifier? How could the exercise of religious freedom be reconciled with the neutrality of the public system, known as laïcité? Was their expulsion compatible with their right to schooling and the State obligation to educate? The Socialists in power were divided. To put an end to internal struggles and stop the media frenzy, Minister of Education Lionel Jospin decided to refer the question to the Conseil d’état, the high administrative court. The Council wise men issued a moderate guideline: the veil should be tolerated unless proselytism and other manifestations incompatible with public order in school justified expulsion.