Exploring Femonationalist Convergences: The French Case of the Muslim Face-veil Ban 1

Exploring Femonationalist Convergences: The French Case of the Muslim Face-veil Ban 1

Abstract

This chapter analyses the role of feminists in the making of the 2010 French law banning the Muslim face-veil in public spaces. Using the concept of femonationalism, it explores how majority feminists took part in advancing a femonationalist discourse and agenda by promoting the ban on the full-face veil. Drawing on the reports of the legislative commission in charge of the law and of the Women’s Rights Delegation to the National Assembly, the chapter aims to analyse which feminists participated in the making of the law and what their arguments to promote the ban were. It shows that their interventions in the legislative process purportedly justified the need for legally banning the full-face veil by mobilising feminist arguments, thereby advancing exclusionary politics in the name of women’s rights. Rather than a mere instrumentalisation of the women’s rights rhetoric by non-feminist actors, this chapter emphasises the convergence dimension of the concept of femonationalism, showing that it implies in some contexts a forthright participation of majority feminists.

In: Angeliki Sifaki, C.L. Quinan, Katarina Lončarević (edited by): Homonationalism, Femonationalism and Ablenationalism: Critical Pedagogies Contextualised, Routledge, London, 2022.