Students at Sciences Po, one of France’s top universities, have invited people to wear the headscarf for a day, saying that by covering their hair participants could “better understand … the experience of stigmatisation” of some Muslim women.
The event came a week after Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, suggested universities should ban the headscarf and claimed that a majority of French people believed Islam was incompatible with the values of the Republic.
Organisers said on their Facebook page they were trying to demystify the headscarf by inviting students and staff to try wearing one.
#HijabDay at the prestigious Sciences Po university in central Paris today pic.twitter.com/7XmbIza5MZ
— Joseph Bamat (@josephbamat) April 20, 2016
The event had the support of the Feminist Association of Sciences Po, Politiqu’elles, who said the event aimed to “give voice to those we talk about all the time but who are never heard”.
But it did not go down well with some other groups at the university, such as the Front National society and the pro-Nicolas-Sarkozy Nous les jeunes (We, the youth) movement, which launched a petition against the event, calling it “a provocation”.
Bernard-Henri Levy, the French writer and philosopher, tweeted: “Hijab Day at Sc Po [Sciences Po]. So when is there going to be a sharia day? Or stoning day? Or slavery day?”
Journée du Hijab, á Sc Po. Á quand une journée de la Charia? De la lapidation? De l'esclavage?
— Bernard-Henri Lévy (@BHL) April 20, 2016
Bruno le Maire, a former agriculture minister, wrote: “As a professor at @sciencespo, I express my disapproval at #HijabDay. In France, women are visible. No proselytising!”
Comme enseignant à @sciencespo, je veux dire ma désapprobation face au #HijabDay. En France, les femmes sont visibles. Non au prosélytisme !
— Bruno Le Maire (@BrunoLeMaire) April 20, 2016
The university published a statement saying the event had been given the green light because “our college has, since its creation, been a place of open debate and free expression”. But, it stressed, the fact that it had allowed it to go ahead could “not be interpreted as the school actively supporting this initiative”.
The event sparked responses across France and by Wednesday afternoon had been mentioned in more than 35,000 tweets.
Happy #HijabDay pic.twitter.com/o8WrKU99hR
— Boulehya (@Medinrecords) April 20, 2016
Islamic head coverings have long been a highly contentious political issue in France, which has some of the hardest-hitting legislation on headscarves in Europe. In 2004 it banned girls from wearing headscarves in state schools, along with other religious symbols such as crosses or turbans.
In 2011, Sarkozy banned the niqab (a full-face Muslim veil) from all public places. State workers in the public service must by law be impartial and neutral, and so cannot show their religious belief with an outward symbol such as a headscarf.
In December last year, the French national consulting body, the Observatory of Secularism, found it would be “neither useful, nor appropriate” to legislate on the wearing of religious symbols – including headscarves – at universities.
Valls, however, chose to reopen the divisive question last week. When asked by the daily Libération whether headscarves should be banned by law from universities, he replied: “It should be done.”
But other Socialist ministers immediately contradicted him. “There is no need for a law on the headscarf at university,” said Thierry Mandon, the higher education minister. He said students were adults, and as such they “have every right to wear a headscarf. The headscarf is not banned in French society.”
