Word: lawness
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...same time excessively visible) threat, namely the insidious spread of radical, Salafist Islam—and hence a religious and implicitly political menace. The proposed ban targets the practice as fundamentally at odds with French republican principles: both secularism and a (historically recent) commitment to gender equality. The new law thus seems, at first glance, to be a logical— and legal—extension of the commitments outlined in a 2004 law on “laïcité” that outlawed all “ostensible” religious symbols from public schools...
...fact, this new legislative proposal represents a significant departure from the previous law and a disturbing radicalization of French political tactics. The responses of jurists to the government’s proposed legislation make it very clear: The “burka ban” does not uphold the principles of French republican law—it overtly violates them...
...law’s sphere of application was heavily circumscribed: It was limited to public schools and it applied to subjects (presumptively victimized young girls) who were legally minor. While the subject of significant debate, both at the time and since, the 2004 law was nonetheless upheld as conforming to the principles of the French Constitution and to the European Convention on Human Rights, in part because it was framed in universal terms. The same cannot be said for the proposed law on the integral veil. The Conseil d’Etat, which provides legal guidance to the executive...
Government officials have overtly flouted these (non-binding) legal opinions, and they have set out to remedy what they view as a lacuna in existing French republican law. There is here a notable paradox: These politicians want to breach existing statutes (on the preservation of “human dignity,” “gender equality,” and even of public order) so as to better uphold them. In doing so, they hope to demonstrate the extent (and integrity) of their “republican” commitments by specifically targeting a very small group...
According to Prime Minister François C. A. Fillon, however, “One must assume the juridical risks of one’s convictions.” President Nicolas P.S. Sarkozy thus clarified the “republican” principles that are supposed to undergird this law before the Council of Ministers on May 19: “We are an old nation, which is assembled around a certain idea of the dignity of the person, and in particular, the woman’s dignity, around a certain idea of living together. The integral veil that totally...