Christophe Tarricone

The “affair” of the running hijab is the latest development in the debates on the place of Islam in France. These debates seem endless since 1989 in a context of increasing influence of fundamentalist tendencies among Muslims in France (without any possiblity of accurately determining which ones can be grouped under the term Islamists). It is also the context of a greater visibility in the public space of the presence of the adherence to this form of Islamic practice, particularly by women, through the display of clothing. This development is taking place in a context marked by terrorist attacks claimed by Islamist jihadism, and committed by French people or young men who grew up on French soil. This can only lead to be suspicious that any form of Islamist fundamentalism could be colluding with this violence. A violence that is never blind, since it has targeted victims and places that are quite clearly identified. The decision taken by a wholesaler to market this garment to women could only provoke tensions, because it was once again bringing back to the centre of the debate the question of the place of women in the Muslim religion and its relationship to men. Behind this anecdotal fact lies the haunting question of women’s control of their bodies, the question of the obligation that can be imposed on them to cover themselves or even hide in a society that has seen French women, through their mobilization, gradually become masters of their bodies since the 1960s…

Lire la suite

Noise, confusion, immigration. The current logic of political debates. A summary of present times that, once again and without surprise, spread on the subject of the new history curricular. It has become impossible to speak about the latter without taking this logic as a starting point. The history of immigrations was absent of working documents that were made public by a teacher’s union. The minister however states that it will not disappear. Meanwhile, some are utterly convinced of the contrary and again others will express during the next days they actually preferred its absence. In any case, a strong feeling of discomfort will prevail for all those with an immigration background. As usual, all the debaters will repeat that they wished for this subject to remain a subject like any other subject-matter and that those directly concerned would not be stigmatised or left apart from the common narrative. But the damage has already been made and once again, students, their parents and all those with this history as background find themselves objects of the political debate – reified as symbols of much larger political rifts. And by consequence, what is most urgent is to close up this debate, for the Minister to stand to his word and for the history of immigration to obviously be present in what is proclaimed our common history, shared by all students. In the current political situation and until the new history curriculums are made public, nothing proofs that this will be the case. On…

Lire la suite