Not even a Women’s Rights Minister gets to tell women what they should or shouldn’t wear.
I lost my desire to sleep when I read that France’s minister for women’s rights compared Muslim women who wear the veil to American “Negroes” who ‘accepted slavery’, in an interview with French media.
Laurence Rossignol, France’s Women’s Rights Minister, also the founder of an anti-racist coalition (SOS Racisme), said this in an interview. There is a social media petition launched calling on the minister to resign. She tried to backtrack saying that she didn’t mean to use the word ‘Negro’. I think it’s pretty clear in this context — that’s exactly what she meant to say.
Comments and bills on muslim women’s self expression is not new to France. France has the largest Muslim minority in Europe and while expressions of faith in public is clearly restricted in France, Islam seems to attract a particular disdain from french politicians.
The problem of the burka is not a religious problem, it’s a problem of liberty and women’s dignity. It’s not a religious symbol, but a sign of subservience and debasement. I want to say solemnly, the burka is not welcome in France. In our country, we can’t accept women prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity. That’s not our idea of freedom.”
Nicolas Sarkozy, 2009
The veil was banned in 2011 despite only 2,000 women wearing it in France. The Muslim population is estimated at five million.
