Foulard, genre et laïcité en 1989

Abstract

The debate on the Islamic head scarf in school began in the fall of 1989. The left was in power and celebrating the bicentenary of the French revolution while they had to deal with the good election scores of the far right and the demonstrations of Muslim fundamentalism. Envisaging the problem of the links between the rights of women and freedom of conscience in a society in which there was a "State feminism" and where Islam had become the second most commonly practiced religion necessitates a major shift of the secular combat lines since the time Jules Ferry wanted to "pull women away from the Church". In this debate, beyond the controversies as to the limits of tolerance of expression of religious belonging in school and the first works on the history of gender applied to confessional and cultural diversity, the question of the emancipating role of the school and especially in the promotion of sexual equality is the crucial question.