‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’, the French republic’s national motto, is the apparent justification for the passing of the controversial law prohibiting ‘facial dissimulation in a public place’. Despite the general wording of the legislation, the target ‘criminals’ are a very specific minority ;of French society: niqab and burqa-clad Muslim women.

Nicholas Sarkozy, president of France, declared that the face-concealing veils are ‘not welcome’ in France, pronouncing the religious garments as oppressive to women and in conflict with secular French values. Misguided French politicians believe the only way to protect these women − estimated to be between 250 and 2,000 in number − from the patriarchal regulation of their husbands and religious fundamentalists is to formulate a law that restricts their dress and forces them to conform to the government’s notion of French national identity.

The niqab and burqa are not just pieces of cloth, as some critics of the ban have claimed. In Western society, they carry political connotations of religious extremism and intense misogyny; I do not in any way champion the wearing of these veils. The face is essential to one’s integration into society (to some extent, too integral) and women who wear the burqa, and to a lesser extent the niqab, lose this indispensable adhesive that plays a crucial role in creating harmonious multicultural communities. 

 However, prohibiting these women from wearing an item of clothing because it does not adhere to a white, middle-class, male politician’s idea of what women should look like is equally as repressive. I very much doubt that if Muslim women are coerced into wearing these veils by their male relatives, husbands or religious leaders that a change in law will lead to a lessening of patriarchal rule. It seems that those women whose dress is controlled by their male relations are more likely to become housebound rather than flout their interpretation of Shariah law. The ban will punish these women, making their lives a misery by excluding them from French society, rather than empowering them to make an informed choice about what they wear.

To put the French government’s notion of ideal womanhood into context, a new initiative called Active Relooking, put into action this year,  offers unemployed French women a government-funded makeover in preparation for job interviews. Meanwhile, government spending on relieving women from the oppressions of the veil focused on printing 100,000 posters and 400,000 leaflets to advertise the ban, stating that ‘the republic lives with its face uncovered’. I cannot help but think that this money could have been targeted into extending education possibilities and hosting community events to actually make a meaningful difference to Muslim women’s lives, rather than on nationalist rhetoric. Sarkozy and his male-majority government − women make up only 19% of French government − certainly do not govern with feminist principles of female empowerment in mind. I very much doubt, for instance, that a ban on Playboy’s marketing of clothes at teenage girls is on the cards any time soon. 

Just to underline the absurdity of the ban: one can walk down the street brandishing a swastika − the insignia of a party responsible for the deaths of between 11-17 million Holocaust victims – in all European countries except Hungary and Poland, yet a woman cannot go out in public wearing a niqab or burqa in France. The disparity points to an unsettling tolerance of racism.

France’s burqa ban does not observe the principles of freedom and equality. It represents a restriction in the freedom of expression and will escalate religious intolerance by isolating Muslim women from French society. The disturbing undertones of France’s fraternité should not be ignored either. It seems that women are only incorporated into the French ‘brotherhood’ if they comply with male standards of femininity. If Muslim women did not have a free choice about what they wore before, they certainly do not now.