The French

Sorry, I should specify: schools prohibit any kind of headscarf at all, even if it leaves the face uncovered.

The current French ruling for public places is against the niqab, a veil that covers the lower half of face (everything except the eyes).

laurel is correct (muslim girls don't wear veils anyway i don't think?) so blueski the number of girls that wear the headscarf in school is theoretically nil, since they're forbidden to do so by national law

I am also thinking that I saw a drop-dead gorgeous and extremely stylish Muslim woman on the subway the other day in wide-legged jeans, a long belted coat, and a silk scarf wrapped around head in classic Hepburn/starlet-in-a-convertible style. Make-up and eyebrows were impeccable, personal style was impeccable, obv she had money. Totally gorgeous and modern and still modestly dressed & scarved.

Do not understand who could find the time to object to that, she was a pleasure to behold.

pic or it didn't happen

i just hope they don't ban fever ray from french award shows

That women should be liberated from exaggerated modesty (I don't think there's much modesty in ostentatious modesty, really) and patriarchal control is praiseworthy but to do so by diktat of law is merely to exchange the petty tyranny of enforced social codes for the petty tyranny of the State and the underpinning of this move in France stems pretty transparently (to me, at least) from not only hypocritical (as Tracer points out above) but also racist/nationalist prejudice. It's easy to be tolerant to people who are just like you, less so, apparently, if they're not.

One of my kids' classmates, a student from Algeria, wears a headband rather than a headscarf, and that's considered acceptable by the school (this is just outside Paris).

I've only seen one woman in anything like a full-body covering here in France.

At my kids' school last month, they sang Christmas carols in class, religious ones, not just your "happy holidays" stuff (although they did that too). This is an ordinary public school. I have some Jewish friends who find this offensive. I don't know what the Muslim kids think. I think the French consider this acculturation, since they don't generally profess the faith anymore.

ime lapsed catholicism is the official religion of france

And Marxism

I've only seen one woman in anything like a full-body covering here in France

seriously? this is common enough in ruralish ireland tbh

That women should be liberated from exaggerated modesty (I don't think there's much modesty in ostentatious modesty, really) and patriarchal control is praiseworthy but to do so by diktat of law is merely to exchange the petty tyranny of enforced social codes for the petty tyranny of the State and the underpinning of this move in France stems pretty transparently (to me, at least) from not only hypocritical (as Tracer points out above) but also racist/nationalist prejudice. It's easy to be tolerant to people who are just like you, less so, apparently, if they're not.

― Mit der Kattzheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens (Michael White), Tuesday, January 26, 2010 6:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i basically agree with this, but don't find a conclusion that easy to reach. it's a difficult dilemma for a liberal secularist, because this is a very strange kind of "freedom to". (i think it's evasive to characterize it as such, really -- we're talking about children.)

(i don't agree with all of it. i don't think the state is enforcing a "tyranny" by doing this ffs.)

I read this the other day:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953382,00.html

Now the French Must Prove They're French:

"What a lot of people don't realize is that with the increasingly strict obligation to prove your citizenship, you can walk into a state administration today to have your ID or passport renewed, and walk out virtually a stateless person," says Naulleau, 48, whose family had been posted to Baden-Baden, Germany — about 30 miles from the French border — when he was born in 1961. "The situation is creating a two-class system of citizenship in which French nationals born abroad or to foreign parents are treated as inferior, and forced to prove their worthiness of being French more than others."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953382,00.html#ixzz0do5jbogZ

history mayne you don't think this decision is tyrannical? then what is it?

what do you think of this?

Others will opine that one cannot be a true citizen if one hides one's face, because one is thus refusing human interaction. Yet some people wear dark glasses out of shyness or pure ­obnoxiousness, and nobody would think of denying them their right to humanity. The security-based objection, requiring one to bare one's face in order to have the right to pick up one's children from school, for instance, or if so required by a police patrol, is legitimate in the abstract, but only if one conveniently forgets the fact that in practice, the new generation of women – among the many we have surveyed – do not in fact refuse to comply.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jan/26/proposed-veil-ban-in-france

from that above link: "Pseudo-feminist rhetoric cannot conceal the fact that it is indeed the voluntary veil which is being fought, and not the imposed article."

yep

as an atheist liberal i still think that believing in whatever wacky comfort blanket gets you thru shd be a basic right, really

and any and all actions arising from that belief? Cos that's the edge that we're treading with this, even if in this case it's a bit of a silly example?

xpost: no, its a case of the French old guard and "intelligentsia" unable to deal with the difference

and any and all actions arising from that belief?

Nah, course not. "Rights" is a tenuous and wobbly notion that is purely metaphysical outside of the realm of enforceable law imo but actions that don't actively harm others ought to be outside of the state's power I think. The chain of logic that would make wearing religious symbols an act of harm is a lot longer than the chain that you could create to argue for lots of other acts that states don't see fit to legislate for.

e.g. "don't indoctrinate kids into religions they can't possibly understand" well yeah I don't disagree on the level of personal ethics but how the fuck are you gonna make a law to stop all the other stupid indoctrinations that all adults enact on kids and which are notably worse/more life-unenhancing?

I like a government trying to strongarm women's rights in one clearly racial/cultural arena tho when governments are so notably awesome at stamping out all the other abuses against women

actions that don't actively harm others

U&K, and kinda tough to see where it occurs in this case, apart from a nastily bruised nationalism.

how the fuck are you gonna make a law to stop all the other stupid indoctrinations that all adults enact on kids

starting with religion not a bad step imo, but not just one aspect of one religion

I seriously don't see any difference between raising your kids to fear imaginary deity and raising your kids to be law-abiding passive consumers tbh and think in many respects the former is preferable.

apart from a nastily bruised nationalism

there's the rub. this is just a really big deal for an enormous amount of people.

Several of them not racist assholes.

I seriously don't see any difference between raising your kids to fear imaginary deity and raising your kids to be law-abiding passive consumers tbh and think in many respects the former is preferable.

new thread pls, because whatever about statement one, the 'preferable' part is challops go leór and we could definitely get good mileage out of it for a wednesday.

Outside

I seriously don't see any difference between raising your kids to fear imaginary deity and raising your kids to be law-abiding passive consumers tbh and think in many respects the former is preferable

And now Brits must start wringing our hands also as the BBC asks Should the UK ban the Muslim face veil?

Complete with handy list for more info.

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Muslim Women's Network UK
British Muslims for Secular Democracy
Independent
British National Party
UK Independence Party

I hate the way the BBC covers stuff like this, like the only people with an interest are veil-wearers and racists.

link to the guardian cover the rest of it maybe?

The Guardian article linked upthread makes a lot of sense (although I'm amazed at the responses it gets). I can't see how anyone could construe this ridiculous proposed "ban" as anything but straight-out racism.

calling it racism is more problematic then just calling it fascism imo

Easier to say that it's racist in its consequences than in intention but easier still to say that racists will support it because it's a fit with their beliefs.

history mayne you don't think this decision is tyrannical? then what is it?

hmmm, i don't know, perhaps some kind of vigorously sexist code of behaviour, rigorously enforced.

just don't get why single out the racism aspect when it's more directly sexist, xenophobic, culturalist etc. xp

Well, it's sexist, xenophobic and culturalist, but it's also racist because it's singling out a practice associated (in French people's minds) with Arabs. Never mind that I can go weeks in Paris without seeing a single niqab, making this a central issue reinforces those associations of Arabs = religious nutcases = danger to society, etc etc.

yeah it only applies to one ethnicity of people. unless you've turned muslim, had a sex change and moved to france steve, which i wouldn't put past you

yeah it only applies to one ethnicity of people.

is it ethnicity, is it race, or is it a particular interpretation of a religious creed? im pretty sure it applies to more than one ethnicity.

Arabs and Cat Stevens.

Yeah you are right obv but let's not pretend this is high-minded melting pot shite pls.

which i wouldn't put past you

er, thanks? ps don't you live in france

It does apply objectively to other ethnicities, but subjectively in France, veiled women = North African Arabs.

This is mere quibbling. Veils are associated with brown-skinned foreign Muslim women. Point, finale. Thre is a desperate strain in French national culture which wishes everyone could be like the Portuguese, Polish, Spanish, German or Russian Jews, Italian, etc.. immigrants of years past and just be fuckin' grateful to become French. Black Africans and Arabs and Asians who have suffered under the boot of the French Empire and its notorious hypocrisy are sufficently wide-eyed not to worship French culture unquestioningly and sufficiently disabused of any naivete to recognize the racist strain in French culture.

(i don't agree with all of it. i don't think the state is enforcing a "tyranny" by doing this ffs.)

Excuse me for being an old fashioned liberal, but anything that doesn't stem from the individual woman's agency is nontheless an imposition; perhaps a welcome one but still an act of immensely patronizing "We know better than you do."

I went to school with a very clever Pakistani woman who felt very liberated by her veil since it was a very overt negation of her status as a sex-object. I didn't always agree with her take on things but I did have to concede to her her right to dress and think as she wished and the French mania for banning all Arab/Muslim traditional female clothing makes me very uneasy for those French (white) women who might wish to convert to Islam not to mention, say, women undergoing chemo, who think the veil might be good cover, not to mention mere provocatrices or nuns.

anything that doesn't stem from the individual woman's agency is nontheless an imposition

yes. i agree with this 100%.

(which is why i think this is a thornier question than a lot of yall are taking it for.) (i worked with a clever enough (why does it matter?) afghan woman who felt very liberated by not wearing a veil, since it was an overt symbol of patriarchy.)

(why does it matter?)

'Cause she wasn't an idiot. I rather treasure that in people.

I acknowledge the thorniness which is why I wish that demogogic politicians wouldn't turn this into an opportunity to score cheap points.

I don't see it as solely a question of individual liberty, because it effectively removes the possibility of any communication between the individual wearing the veil and everyone else. I think the State has a legitimate interest in not allowing such walls between its inhabitants.

We've done this back when Jack Straw wanted to burn down mosques but tbh if "removing a barrier to communication" is the best the State's got then it needs to be thinking up better pretend reasons for doing something.

it effectively removes the possibility of any communication between the individual wearing the veil and everyone else

er, except it doesn't

Women in niqabs can still communicate! My four year old son went up to one the other day and she was perfectly happy to talk to me & my son.

Interesting development but colour me sceptical. There are a lot of people in the Socialist Party that hate Melenchon more than Macron. Even if such an alliance succeeds in the legislatives, the chances of it all falling apart within weeks, to Macron's ultimate benefit, are high.

Yeah the last tweet of that thread is watch this space.

On Melenchon's evolution.

Mélenchon 2017-2022: from tribune of the people to radical socialdemocrat. A short 🧵

— Paolo Gerbaudo (@paologerbaudo) June 13, 2022

It's that Jeremie Le Quorbyn again.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/06/14/support-jeremy-corbyn-shows-danger-french-left-claims-emmanuel/

yes. yes. YES https://t.co/sox6oaeiWS pic.twitter.com/aOIK4zYgoj

— 「𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮」 (@tara_chara) June 15, 2022

qu'en est-il des dimensions relatives dans l'espace?

The footage and the applause is so good.

‘Whereas capital works to dominate the long term through the short term… our own model seeks to harmonise the rhythms of production with those of nature… We are going to nationalise time’ — Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Amazing that any national-level political leader can talk like this https://t.co/Yb5wkepwUd

— David Broder (@broderly) June 14, 2022

Macron just lost his parliamentary majority, and Mélenchon's left-green alliance is set to win 150 to 180 seats. Gonna be hard to be Jupiter nowhttps://t.co/iwmafa1CfJ

— Vincent Bevins (@Vinncent) June 19, 2022

This is a more thorough assessment.

Some thoughts (to be continued as the night goes on):

1) Biggest news by far is that France's far-right finally has a bloc in parliament that matches its electoral strength. This is the logical conclusion of institutional normalisation, but 80+ députés for the RN is still huge.

— Emile Chabal (@emile_chabal) June 19, 2022

Henri Bergson to thread!

Or even just
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKcwJD3ky38

Rachel Kéké, a hotel chambermaid who led a 22-month strike, was elected as an MP with France Insoumise. Her first comments were to women cleaning workers at the National Assembly: ‘I’m going to be taking a look at their working conditions!’ https://t.co/kCxp2dgRSZ

— David Broder (@broderly) June 19, 2022

54% of people stayed away, and that's how the far-right win.

Can't say I love the analysis but it's a neat summary.

"There is, finally, a resource of another order: hatred of the police – insofar as it is a driving force. When power lets loose its henchmen, two radically different results can follow: intimidation, or the tenfold multiplication of rage."https://t.co/IlZfsPp4Qm

— Yukon Cornelius 🔥🇨🇦🔥 (@NeeedlesEye) March 30, 2023

incredible optics by a master politician.. jam through legislation to rip two years of retired life away from elderly workers with one hand then push for legalizing euthanasia of the aged with the other https://t.co/FXqQByKL9L

— yung🛠walken (@as_a_worker) April 3, 2023

Looks good.

Video summarizing last night's riot in Lyon. (not mine, I only added filters) pic.twitter.com/bcjG2NE35V

— ⛛ Anarchia! 🏴‍☠️🏳️‍⚧️🦜 (@ThCollierPerles) April 18, 2023

Guess what happened next. You won't believe!

The prosecutor is asking for 8 months imprisonment. For picking up €20 in front of a Sephora.

— meerie jesuthasan (@durianist) July 4, 2023

the night courts

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/20/france-immigration-bill-passed-controversy-emmanuel-macron-marine-le-pen

Love how this racism is described as controversial