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State neutrality and Islamic headscarf laws in France and Germany

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Abstract

Neutrality has been the classic answer of the liberal state to religious and cultural difference. A number of multicultural critics recently debunked it as “myth” and group power in disguise. Comparing Islamic headscarf laws in France and Germany, I argue that neutrality is more complex and multifaceted than this. The comparison shows that neutrality leaves space for particularistic and universalistic, unity- and rights-oriented stances, the first located in the sphere of democratic politics, the second in the legal–constitutional sphere. Recent headscarf laws may then be understood as political backlash against the rights-oriented neutrality that has emerged in the legal spheres of both countries.

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Notes

  1. Jeremy Waldron (1989:62) dates its first appearance to 1974. While his key distinction between the “right” and the “good” presumes the idea of neutrality, John Rawls does not use the word, because of its close association in everyday language with (impossible) “neutrality of effect.” But he subscribes to “neutrality of procedure” and “neutrality of aim,” which is the claim that the justifications (rather than effects) of state action have to be neutral (Rawls 1988:260–264). For an exceptionally lucid and empirically rich account of the “ethical neutrality of the state” from a Rawlsian perspective, see Huster (2002).

  2. Here and in the following I use the notions of “headscarf,” “veil,” and “foulard” interchangeably, denoting (unless further specified) Islamic head-covers for women, irrespective of their different degrees of hiding face, hair, or—in the case of “veils”—the rest of the body. For good and succinct discussions of nuances and religious meanings of such head- and body-wear, see Shadid and Van Koningsveld (2005:35–39), and Bowen (2006:68–81).

  3. For instance, the stellar account of constitutional politics in Europe by Alec Stone Sweet (2000) does not at all discuss minority rights.

  4. Robert Frost, quoted by Nagel (1987:215).

  5. Schlaich (1972:42) calls this variant of positive neutrality “rejection of an extrinsic yardstick for action and decision-making.”

  6. Herbert Krüger paraphrasing the title of Robert Musil’s famous novel, quoted in Schlaich, op. cit., p.237.

  7. There is no generally agreed definition of laïcité. It is mostly translated as “secularism.” But if this is meant to be a stance-taking against church and religion, it would amount to a reductionist understanding of laïcité (even though one that once may have had a certain currency, in terms of laicity as “ideology of combat;” see Rivero 1960:265). In the context of a liberal state, or more precisely: of liberal constitutionalism, laicity is ipso facto refusal of a substantive “state philosophy,” and it thus becomes identical with “neutrality, and neutrality alone,” as Jean Rivero put it in a classic comment on laicity (ibid. 273). Even the contemporary opposition between “liberal” and “Republican” laicity is premised on a shared understanding of laicity as state neutrality, and those who try to reload it as (by implication exclusionary) principle of national unity have not questioned this premise. On the contrary, it is precisely the advocates of Republican laicity who have pushed for an expansive understanding of “neutrality” that asks for the suppression of all religious symbolisms in public space. This version of laicity in mind, Seyla Benhabib defines “laicity” as “public and manifest neutrality of the state toward all kinds of religious practices, institutionalized through a vigilant removal of sectarian religious symbols, signs, icons and items of clothing from official public spheres” (Benhabib 2004:ch.5). One sees: for “liberals” (like Rivero) and “Republicans” (as depicted by Benhabib) alike, “laicity” is always neutrality, though the latter means very different things for both. In being forced to bow to the neutrality premise, advocates of Republican laicity (like President Chirac, in his call for a headscarf law in December 2003; see footnote 19) even tend to adopt the rhetoric of “open and generous” laicity, which is usually that of their liberal opponents. Paraphrasing Nathan Glazer’s diction that “we are all multiculturalists now,” one could say that “we are all neutralists now,” in the sense that nobody today seriously advocates that it is the business of the state to tell people what to think and what to believe.

  8. E. Badinter, R. Debray, A. Finkielkraut, E. de Fontenay, C. Kintzler, “Profs, ne capitulons pas!,” Le Nouvel Observateur 2 November 1989.

  9. Avis du Conseil d’Etat, 27 November 1989, reprinted in William (1991; emphasis supplied).

  10. “Lettre de Jules Ferry aux instituteurs” (http://s.huet.free.fr/paideia/paidogonos/jferry3.htm; last accessed 17 April 2007). It has to be noted here that neither the 1905 law nor the 1880s public education reform under Jules Ferry explicitly mentioned the word laïcité. This term was first introduced in the 1946 Constitution, which declares that “France is an indivisible, laic, democratic, and social Republic.”

  11. Thomas Milcent (“Dr. Abdallah”), in his testimony to the Debré Commission (Debré Report 2003: vol. II, 2nd part, p.36).

  12. Circulaire du 12 décembre 1989 (Education nationale, Jeunesse et Sports) (“Laïcité, port de signes religieux par les élèves et caractère obligatoire des enseignements”).

  13. Circulaire no. 1649 du 20 septémbre 1994 (Education nationale) (“Neutralité de l’enseignement public: port de signes ostentatoires dans les établissements scolaires”).

  14. See also the excellent account by Françoise Lorcerie (2005), who characterized the “politicization” of the Islamic veil in 2003–2004 as “triumphe of a political enterprise” (p.11).

  15. For a very similar interpretation, see Lorcerie (2005:13).

  16. As Bowen (2006:123) notes, between September 2003 and February 2004, there was an average of two articles per day on the Islamic headscarf in each of the three major French newspapers (Le Monde, Figaro, Libération).

  17. Xavier Ternisien, “Pourquoi la polémique sur le foulard à l’école?” Le Monde, 17 June 2003.

  18. G. Bapt (PS), Assemblée Nationale, 3 February 2004, 149th session, p.1337.

  19. “Discours pronouncé par Jacques Chirac, président de la République française, relative au respect du principe de laïcité dans la République,” 17 December 2003, Elysée Palace, Paris,http://www.aidh.org/laic/pres-17-12-chirac.htm (last accessed 17 April 2007).

  20. Prime Minister Raffarin addressing the Assemblée Nationale, 148th session, 3 February 2004.

  21. A. Gerin (Communist Party), Assemblée Nationale, 3 February 2004, 3rd séance, p.1317.

  22. Quoted from the 148 and 149th sessions, Assemblée Nationale, 3 February 2004. The only noteworthy disagreement concerned the precise wording of the prohibition: should it cover all “visible” religious symbols, as preferred, for the sake of clarity, by the Socialists, or should it cover only “ostentatious” symbols, which was the regulatory status quo and preferred by the ruling Gaullists? Fear of a European Court of Human Rights intervention conditioned the eventual choice of banning “ostensible” symbols, which is a linguistic compromise between “visible” and “ostentatious.”

  23. From Sarkozy’s testimony before the Debré Commission (Debré Report 2003: vol. 3, 6th part, p.119, 115, 118, respectively). See also the book-length interviews with Sarkozy (2004).

  24. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20 January 2004.

  25. It has to be stated, of course, that the nominal reference in the French defense of headscarf laws was more to “laicity” than to “neutrality,” and that the tight linkage between both is more a matter of interpretation (though one that, in my view, is incontestable). By contrast, in Germany the central reference was to the word “neutrality” itself.

  26. The contrast between French “distance-taking” and German “comprehensive” neutrality is standard in French–German comparisons of state–church regimes. See, for instance, Gromitsaris (1996).

  27. Kretschmann (Greens), First Reading of anti-veiling law, Landtag Baden-Württemberg (BW), 4 February 2004, p.4390.

  28. Kleinmann (FDP/DVP), ibid., Landtag BW, 4 February 2004, p.4397.

  29. Paul Kirchhof, “Die postsäkulare Gesellschaft,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 3 June 2004.

  30. Constitutional justice Christine Hohmann-Dennhard argued convincingly that reference to “Christian-Occidental values” is surrogate for the notions of “nation and national,” which have been delegitimized by German history. See her speech, “Vom Staat und den Werten, auf die sein Recht baut,” excerpts of which are reprinted in Frankfurter Rundschau, 17 February 2006.

  31. Uwe Volkmann, “Risse in der Rechtsordnung,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 11 March 2004.

  32. The plaintiff’s claim, as summarized in BverfG, 2 BvR 1436/02, 24 September 2003, p.5.

  33. BverwG 2c21.01, 4 July 2002, p.7.

  34. Ibid., p.10.

  35. Ibid., p.9.

  36. The critics included three dissenting members of the Court itself, who argued that no statutory law was necessary to outlaw religious wear of teachers because the latter, qua being oath-taking civil servants (Beamte), were already obliged to “temperance and professional neutrality” (BverfG, 2 BvR 1436/02, 24 September 2003, par.79). The neutrality invoked here evidently springs more from the Weberian idea of office-holding sine ira et studio than from liberalism. In this spirit, a conservative constitutional lawyer ridiculed the majority court position as “rights activism and office amnesia” (Josef Isensee, “Grundrechtseifer und Amtsvergessenheit”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 18 June 2004).

  37. BverfG, 2 BvR 1436/02, 24 September 2003, p.15.

  38. Ibid., p.17.

  39. Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, 1. Wahlperiode, 62. Sitzung, 4 February 2004, p.4387.

  40. BverfG, 2 BvR 1436/02, 24 September 2003, p.15.

  41. E.-W. Böckenförde, “Mit dem Unvertrauten vertraut werden,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 17 July 2004.

  42. BverfG, 2 BvR 1436/02, 24 September 2003, p.13f.

  43. Tageszeitung (TAZ), 4 June 2003.

  44. The speech is reprinted in Frankfurter Rundschau, 23 January 2004.

  45. Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, 13. Wahlperiode, Drucksache 13/2793, 14 January 2003.

  46. Professor Ferdinand Kirchhoff, in: Ausschuss für Schule, Jugend und Sport (2004), p.11.

  47. Ibid., p.11.

  48. Deputy Kleinmann (FDP/DVP), Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, 13. Wahlperiode, 67. Sitzung, 1 April 2004, p.4704.

  49. A. Schavan (CDU), Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, 13. Wahlperiode, 4 February 2004, p.4387.

  50. Deputy Mack (CDU), Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, 13. Wahlperiode, 67. Sitzung, 1 April 2004, p.4710.

  51. Deputy Wintruff (SPD), Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, 13. Wahlperiode, 4. February 2004, p.4395.

  52. Professors Mahrenholz, Jestaedt, and Böckenförde, in: Ausschuss für Schule, Jugend, und Sport (2004).

  53. Ibid., p.47.

  54. F. Kirchhoff, ibid., p.82f.

  55. BverfGE 41, 29 (“Simultanschule”), decision of 17 December 1975; the quote is from Article 16 of the 1953 constitution of Baden-Württemberg.

  56. Ibid.

  57. Drucksache 13/3071, Beschlussempfehlung und Bericht des Ausschusses für Schule, Jugend und Sport, 30 March 2004, p.3.

  58. Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, plenary session of 1 April 2004, p.4719.

  59. See footnote 30.

  60. Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, plenary session of 1 April 2004, p.4719.

  61. Ibid., p.4721.

  62. Deputy Kretschmann (Greens), Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, plenary session of 4 February 2004, p.4389.

  63. D. Haselbach, “Zurückhaltung wird nur den Fremden auferlegt,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 25 August 2004.

  64. Kretschmann (Greens) and Wieser (CDU), Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, plenary session of 4 February 2004, p.4406.

  65. Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, “Ver(w)irrung im Kopftuchstreit,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16 January 2004.

  66. The “neutrality of public space” was invoked in Chirac’s ceremonial call for an anti-headscarf law on 17 December 2003 (see footnote 19); for a feminist attack on the veil (that may “hide a beard”), and which equally invoked a “neutral public space, free of all religious expressions,” see Anne Vigerie and Anne Zelensky, “Laïcardes, puisque féministes,” Le Monde 30 May 2003.

  67. Tariq Ramadan, “Muslims: To thine own selves be true,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), 13 October 2005, p.A19.

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Acknowledgement

I benefited greatly from three anonymous reviewers for this journal (one of whom, John Bowen, subsequently lifted his anonymity), and from comments received by Rogers Brubaker in his capacity as Editor. My thanks go to all of them.

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    Christian Joppke

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Joppke, C. State neutrality and Islamic headscarf laws in France and Germany. Theor Soc 36, 313–342 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-007-9036-y

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