The Muslim veil in the USA and France: a comparative analysis of law and policy

Herman T. Salton

International Journal of Public Policy, 2014, vol. 10, issue 6, 333-367

Abstract: The USA and France are often perceived as having different, if not antipodal, legal and political systems. At first sight the treatment of the Muslim veil at school confirms this impression, for this piece of clothing is seen in the USA as a private symbol of religious devotion and benefits from the protection of the First Amendment, whereas the same item is regarded in France, after March 2004, as a threat to the idea of French secularism ('laïcité') and is prohibited in all public schools. While much has been written about the French statute on religious signs at school, this article takes a different angle. By adopting a comparative perspective, it looks at the treatment of the Muslim veil in France and the USA before 2004 and finds that the two legal systems offered a similar constitutional protection to this religious symbol. In particular, both systems saw the fact of wearing the veil as a private right not to be tampered with by the State except in exceptional cases - mainly associated with public order - and so both countries adopted a case-by-case approach that regarded any general prohibition of wearing the veil as a violation of well-established principles of constitutional law. The article comes to the conclusion that Statute 228 departs from the tolerant spirit shown by French law until 2004.

Keywords: Muslim veil; Islam; USA; United States; France; First Amendment; laïcité; Establishment Clause; secularism; tolerance; constitutional law; public policy; religious symbols; religious signs; Islamophobia; intolerance; American law; French law; religious freedom; individual rights; personal freedom; human rights; public schools. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=64966 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijpubp:v:10:y:2014:i:6:p:333-367

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Public Policy from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().