At the end of last year, when the commission appointed by Jacques Chirac to look into the health of secular values in France delivered its recommendations, no one was surprised to hear that a ban on the wearing of all ostentatious religious symbols in schools, the Muslim hijab or veil above all, was high on the list. The deliberations were really about Islam and its inroads into French secular culture. The ban will become law before the next school term; the difficult interim has been a time to test loyalties to the Republic, immigrant and beur loyalties for the most part, and television has been the place to do it.

LRB 19 February 2004 | PDF Download