Islamophobia in France The Left Paralyzed Dear comrades, One year after the vote of a law banning young muslims from wearing their headscarf in schools, it appears that the law has encouraged a much wider expression of is- lamophobia. There have been a number of violent at- tacks against mosques. Around fifty young women were expelled from schools after the law passed because of the headscarf, but many many more decided not to go to school any more 'voluntarily'. Nevertheless, the majority of the young women involved accepted against their will to remove the headscarf. This last fact is being count- ed as a victory by many, whereas in fact it is a public humiliation of people because of their religious rituals. There have even been cases of young women being asked to shout 'Long Live the Republic', after removing their headscarf at the school gates. Discrimination has spread beyond school pupils. Mothers in many primary and nursery schools in my town and a few others have been banned from accompanying school out- ings, even though the Minister of Education himself said this was illegal. At universities, in banks, and in police stations, women wearing headscarves have been shown the door. All this is illegal too, but the islamophobes are feeling confident. TERNATIONA LAR * REWPOINT O Now the analy tom and rech intrictical f News from the rl International Viewpoint Online macazine Current Issue: IV366 - April 2006 - Full contents here Theor Latest Arucies... Documents of the Fl Bolivia Mont cove ¡Cochabambal - Story of the water viars Index DEALE GUILOOKE THE POT TER OF RESISTAMLE "Our live than their profits AL FORUM US ELECTIGNS reaturing Betters treuil, France) News and analysis from the Fourth International New - updated - website debates from all corners of the globe. News from the Fl, the mutant lett and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow. * SOCIALIST CUTLOCK UK = £10 ** NEW LABOUR & NEO LIBERALIS SECULARISM. RELIGION MATERIAL THE POLTICS OF FOOD Resistance to the law and campaigning against it has been organized around the 'One school for everybody' commit- tees, which probably have about five hundred activists around the country. The committees stated from the out- set their opposition to anybody being forced o take off a headscarf or to put on a headscarf against their will. Nevertheless, naturally, the committees are caricatured in the press as being 'pro-headscarf' or even 'wanting ethnic war' as one popular Paris magazine put it. The left and far left organisations as such have done practically nothing against the law. Some organisations such as Lutte Ouvrière or SOS Racisme support the law, but most are just hopelessly divided and paralysed on this issue, the most emotional issue to hit the left for many decades. So the committees are made up of people coming from minority positions within the Greens, the feminists, and the revolutionary left, as well as by some of the smaller and more left wing muslim organizations (the larger ones being too obsessed by respectability to oppose the law once it had been passed). Most left wing activists in France hope the question will go away. It won't though, and the left is in grave need of major clarifications about religion and Islam. John Mullen (Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, Mon- A window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the International Viewpoint - online at www.internationalviewpoint.org Subscription & Back Issues Make cheques payable to Socialist Outlook. Send to P.O. Bax 1109, N4 2UU, London, UK. Subscription includes 1 years quarterly issues and postage & packaging. International = £15 Europe = £13 Issue 1: Capitalism means War: Politics by other means Issue 2: Movements, broad parties and the revolutionary party Issue 3: 'Our Lives are worth more than their profits' Issue 4: The Politics of resistance 33
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