A controversy sparked by a student union representative's headscarf during a TV interview has reignited ongoing tensions over this Muslim headgear and its place in France’s secular state.
When Maryam Pougetoux, spokesperson for the left-wing student union UNEF, was interviewed on TV earlier this month about government university reforms, she had no idea her brief appearance would spark such a fierce online debate on French secularism.
It wasn’t what she said, but what she was wearing. On May 12, speaking to a journalist on behalf of her union which opposes the reforms, the articulate 19-year-old appears on screen wearing a hijab – a Muslim headscarf that left her face uncovered but concealed her forehead, neck and ears.
Shortly after, Laurent Bouvet, a political science expert at Versailles Saint-Quentin-En-Yvelines university and staunch secularist, posted a damning comment on Twitter which reignited an ongoing polemic about the role of religion in French public life. Intellectuals, philosophers and politicians waded in. Even Interior Minister Gérard Collomb got involved, saying he thought the woman’s headgear was "shocking". [France24] Read more
