Liberté? Egalité? Fraternité?

By David Talbot

As of today the Bill ‘Prohibiting Facial Dissimulation in a Public Place’ will forbid French citizens from covering their faces in public places. Despite the ban’s deliberately general wording, there is no doubt that its target is very specific – for though the law does not mention the niqab or burka by name, they are undoubtedly the intended target. Failure to obey the law could lead to a €150 fine and being sent to citizenship classes. A criminal record might well follow. Nicholas Sarkozy, the embattled French President, has pressed ahead with this most contentious of acts stating that the burqa is “a sign of enslavement and debasement”.

Last year, Conservative MP Philip Hollobone introduced a private members’ bill proposing a ban. Its supporters included Nigel Farage of UKIP. Farage had called for a ban a year earlier in the run up to the European elections claiming the garments are an affront to British values. The announcement was a clear attempt by UKIP to broaden its appeal and address the concerns of disaffected white working-class voters. It was populist, scaremongering vote-gathering ahead of the European elections and ironically a rallying cry to a diktat that flies in the face of British customs and beliefs that the likes of UKIP apparently wish to so staunchly defend. Despite the calls for bans coming solely from the right of the political spectrum, this debate has the potential to be very uncomfortable for the Labour Party. The working classes have always been the demographic most susceptible to the challenges and benefits of immigration and multiculturalism.

Those who have argued for a ban on the burka and niqab have not managed to show that these garments in any way undermine democracy, public safety, order or morals. The fact that a very small number of women wear such clothing has made the proposals even less convincing. According to a French internal intelligence investigation last year, 1,900 women wear the niqab in France. Since there are an estimated two million adult Muslim women in France, niqab wearers amount to roughly one in 1,000 or 0.1 per cent. But still the French authorities have printed 100,000 posters and 400,000 leaflets with the smug slogan: “The republic lives with its face uncovered.” This is a PR exercise that has nothing to do with the veil and everything to do with rallying nationalistic sentiment.

It’s a law designed to appeal to anti-immigration sentiment and, in particular, to stake a claim on the resurgent Front National’s territory. It’s a policy which legitimises far-right xenophobic parties as it attempts to claw back votes. The rhetoric employed is one means by which Sarkozy hopes to win over those who usually place their trust in the National Front, a party that has been revived by Marine Le Pen. With the latest opinion poll showing Le Pen ahead of Sarkozy in the first round of presidential voting, the president will seemingly do anything to save his political skin.

Thankfully the calls from the sole Tory MP and the leader of UKIP have found little fertile ground in the British political debate, but that does not mean the issue is not prevalent amongst the British public. Whilst I may find the concept of using the forceful apparatus of the state to prevent a minority of law-abiding citizens from wearing an item of clothing pretty repugnant, others will say the burqa is a tangible sign of separation in our communities. In his desperation to secure political office and uphold France’s proud secularism, Sarkozy’s ban has violated the basic French principle of liberty. Because liberty means allowing others to get on with their lives, even if you don’t approve of their wardrobe choices.

We may not like their choice. We may find it disturbing and offensive. But the country that was forged with liberté, égalité, fraternité as its motif has struck a powerful blow at the very freedoms we should all cherish.