Revisiting The Headscarf Debate in France from A Constructivist Approach
Revisiting The Headscarf Debate in France from A Consructivist Approach

Summary/Abstract: This article aims at investigating how Muslim women in France and their veiling in the form of headscarves destabilized the domestic dynamics of France, whose reputation for strong adherence to secular principles makes the issue more challenging than in any other Western European country. By focusing on the public and political landscape surrounding the 2004 headscarf debate, Muslim girls wearing headscarves to school, I argue that “Islamic identity”, which tends to be associated with the headscarf, has come to serve as a threat toward secularism by French political elites, the media and the general public. Referring to Constructivism, I argue that the development of the headscarf affair into a national crisis is not a coincidental process; if the members of the Muslim community in France have taken on a strong socio-political identity that affects the domestic balances of the French society, it is because the historical evolution of the identities and interests of purposive actors have been interpreted and marketed in a way to serve this end. Through this process, Muslim women have been able to assertively struggle not only for their religious identity but also for a socio-political identity in a state where the most cherished legacy has been the separation of religion and politics. Nonetheless, the interpretation of the headscarf as a threat to the French Republic led to the situation that a Muslim socio-political identity remained under the heavy pressure of and could not be detached from veiling as a purely religious and often a divergent practice.

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