Islamic scarf controversy in France

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In France, there is an ongoing social, political, and legal debate concerning the wearing of the hijab and other forms of Islamic coverings in public. The cultural framework of the controversy can be traced to France's history of colonization in North Africa,^[1] but escalated into a significant public debate in 1989 when three girls were suspended from school for refusing to remove their headscarves.^[2] That incident, referred to in France as l'affaire du foulard (the scarf affair) or l'affaire du voile (the veil affair), initially focused the controversy on the wearing of the hijab in French public schools. Because of the wide-ranging social debates caused by the controversy, l'affaire du foulard has been compared to the Dreyfus affair in its impact on French culture.^[3][4]

Since 1989, the debate has grown to include the wearing of Islamic coverings on public beaches, when playing sports, and by politicians.^[1] The larger debate involves the concept of laïcité (secularism), the place of Muslim women in French society, differences between Islamic doctrine and Islamic tradition, the conflict between communitarianism and the French policy of minority assimilation, discussions of the "Islamist threat" to French society, and Islamophobia.^[5]

According to several researchers, the 2004 headscarf ban "reduces the secondary educational attainment of Muslim girls and affects their trajectory in the labor market and family composition in the long run."^[6]