Unveiling (post)colonial République: Gendered Islamophobia in France

Abstract

Moving from the new draft law aimed at banning the wearing of the hijab by underage Muslim girls in France, this contribution aims at tracing a genealogy of the long struggle of the République against Islamic veils. Adopting an intersectional and postcolonial feminist perspective, we are interested in questioning the continuities and discontinuities with the colonial past and, at the same time, with the sequence of the various affaires du foulards over the last thirty years. Through a mixed-method analysis, we want to critique the political and mediatic instrumental use of arguments such as laïcité and feminism to justify discriminatory and exclusionary laws. A series of semi-structured interviews with French Muslim women, along with the use of textual productions of concerned subjects, will allow us to adopt a perspective that speaks next to concerned Muslim women.

Keywords: Islamic veil ban, French Muslim women, gendered islamophobia, postcolonial critique, intersectionality.