How has the Female Body become a Site of National Identity Construction and

Representation in contemporary France?

MA Thesis in European Studies

Identity & Integration Track

Graduate School for Humanities

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Eilidh McCann

11314060

Main Supervisor: Dr. Krisztina Lajosi-Moore

Second Supervisor: Dr. Marleen Rensen

July 2017 Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my thanks to all those who assisted me in the completion of my MA thesis.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Krisztina Lajosi-Moore for all her words of wisdom and encouragement. I would like to express my appreciation to Dr.

Alex Drace-Francis for his assistance to my peers and I in the development of our MA thesis projects. Thanks goes out to all the staff of the University of Amsterdam European Studies department.

I would like to express my gratitude to my superiors who I have reached out to at University

College Cork, for all their interest, perspective and encouragement.

Finally, I thank my parents for all their constant loving support.

!1 Preface

This essay was written as part of the Master of Arts programme of European Studies: Identity and Integration. Citations have not been translated because of the prominence of the French language in Europe. Moreover, specific terminology like laïcité does not have a direct

English translation therefore, for clarity, certain terminology remains in its original form. Not for lack of effort, I have been obligated to cite secondary sources for certain images and media sources due to geographical remoteness and lack of accessibility to foreign language sources.

This research question was inspired by my essay that was written for the module of Cultures of Nationalism, as part of my Master of Arts degree in European Studies: Identity and

Integration. This essay was entitled ‘The Contested Perception of Marianne: Reflections of a

Contemporary France?’

My bachelor dissertation featured a similar line of inquiry regarding laïcité. It focused on an in-depth analysis of the judicial process of the Baby Loup case in France between 2010 and

2014. The dissertation was entitled, ‘Baby Loup: An Exceptional Case? An analysis of the

Nature of Laïcité in Contemporary France.’

!2 Acknowledgements…………………………………………………..…………………… 1

Preface…………………………………………………..……………………..…………… 2

Contents Page………………………………………………..…………………..…………. 3

I. Methodology & Theoretical Background…………………………………………………. 5

I.i Introduction & Background………………………………………………………. 5

I.ii Discourse & Media Analysis..…………………………………………………… 7

I.iii National Identity..…………………………………………….…………………. 9

I.iv Perspectives & Approaches…………………………………….………………. 10

I.iv.a Gender & Feminism………………………………………..………… 11

I.iv.b Multiculturalism………………………………………….……….….. 12

I.v. Case Studies: Marianne & the Veiled Muslim Woman……..………………….. 15

II. Contextualisation: Female Symbolism within the French Republic……………………. 19

II.i Marianne……………………………………………………..………………… 19

II.i.a Evolutive History……………………………………………………… 22

II.i.b Interpretations & Confusion..……………..………….……………..… 24

II.ii. The Veiled Muslim Woman………………………………………………….… 26

II.ii.a The Nation’s Other…………………………………………………… 28

II.iii Laïcité & the Veiling History………………………………………………….. 29

!3 III. French, Feminine & Feminist?…………………………………………………………. 35

III.i Burdening the Body……………………………………………………………. 35

III.i.a Femen………………………………………………………………… 36

III.i.b The Real & the Idealised…………………………………………….. 39

III.ii Cultural Framing: Burkinigate………………………………………………… 41

III.ii.a Femininity à la Français…………………………………………..…42

III.ii.b Mothers of the Nation……………………………………………..… 46

IV. Feminism versus Multiculturalism……………………………………………………… 50

IV.i. The Burqa Ban…………………………………………………………………. 50

IV.i.a The Face of the Other………………………………………………… 53

IV.ii Identity Politics………………………………………………………………………… 55

IV.ii.a Immigration………………….………………….…………………… 58

IV.iii The Racialisation of Marianne………………….………………….…………. 61

IV.iii.a The Ethnicisation of Marianne……………………………………………… 62

V. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..… 64

V.i Veiling Marianne……………………………………………………………….. 64

V.ii An Engendered & Racialised Identity of the Nation………..…………………. 65

Appendix …………………………………………………………………………………… 67

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………94

!4 I. Methodology & Theoretical Background

I.i. Introduction and Background The proliferation of events where French national identity was being projected upon the female body often involved the enforcing – or reinforcing – of certain ideals surrounding not only national identity but, equally, female identity in contemporary French society. Moore (2012) indeed insists that ‘[f]emale bodies have stood as perpetually re-deployable symbols of the French Republic throughout its history’.1 The de-veiling of Algerian women as a means of demonstrating success in the French colonisation process;2 the presumptuous premise that Marianne must be depicted as having a bare breast alongside; and the de-robing of Muslim women on sunny beaches in Nice in 2016; all indicate the significance of the female form in public and political discourse concerning national identity in France.

Historically speaking, studies have shown that laïcité – a distinct form of separation of church and state - was imposed significantly less in colonised countries than in the French metropole. Reflecting upon the infamous de-veiling of Muslim women in order to demonstrate the success of the French colonisation project, one could assume that this act was therefore not religiously motivated but culturally and politically motivated. The pattern of cultural and political motivation is reaffirmed by Patrick Weil (2008) who notes how the label of ‘Muslim’ in late 1880’s, colonised Algeria maintained an ethnic-political – not merely a religious – character. He goes on to underline how a decision made by the court of appeals in 1910 Indochina is often cited in order to reflect the situation of Algerian Muslims at the time: ‘in their nationality, they resemble citizens; in their personal status, they resemble foreigners.’3 In contemporary France, the term ‘Muslim’ is not only built upon religious

1 Alison Moore, ‘Historicising Sexual Symbols.’ Chap 1 in Sexing Political Culture in the History of France, ed. Alison Moore (Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2012), 2.

2 Pierre Tévanian, ‘A Conservative Revolution within Secularism: The Ideological Premises and Social Effects of the March, 15 2004, ‘Anti-Headscarf’ Law’ in Frenchness and the African Diaspora: Identity and Uprising in Contemporary France, eds. Charles Tshimanga, Didier Gondola and Peter Bloom (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2009), 198.

3 Patrick Weil, How to be French: Nationality in the Making since 1789, trans. Catherine Porter (Durham; London: Duke University Press, 2008) 219.

!5 foundations but can equally be defined as a ‘neo-ethnic term’ to describe immigrants with an Asian or African background.4

The complexity of contemporary political and public discourse vis-à-vis Islamic headscarves in France mirrors the perceived transformation of laïcité into ‘un ethos social de la communauté’.5 This proclamation stems from the suggestion that there exists a ‘jarring’ with another culturally based phenomenon: female emancipation and, more generally, gender equality. These are consequently used to legitimise policies that seek to ‘de-veil’ Muslim women. In short, la ‘ “question nationale” est, singulièrement en France, liée à la fois à des enjeux de sexe et des enjeux de race.’ 6

In France, an idealised rhetoric has been used regarding ethnic minorities which combine with certain ideals of national and female identity. These ideals are expressed through discursive prompts which accumulate to form a particular, ethnic-gendered discourse. This piece of research will focus predominantly upon discursive and visual representations of national identity in order to explore their effects upon the maintenance – and construction – of French national identity along the lines of gender and ethnicity. An exploration of national identity construction and representation will be built upon the consideration of the localisation of the female form in national, visual and verbal discourse. Specifically, it will entail an exploration of contemporary perceptions and tensions surrounding two contested female forms: firstly, that of Marianne – the allegorical figure of the French Republic – and secondly, that of the veiled Muslim woman. In summary, the research question will read as follows: How has the female body become a site of national identity construction and representation in contemporary France?

4 Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet, ‘France’ in Addressing tolerance and diversity discourses in Europe: A Comparative Overview of 16 European Countries, eds. Ricard Zapata-Barrero and Anna Triandafyllidou (Barcelona: CIDOB/GRITIM-UPF, 2012), 38.

5 Romi S. Mukherjee, ‘Marianne voilée’, Histoire, monde et cultures religieuses 2, no. 34 (2015): 83.

6 Clare Hancock, ‘Le corps féminin, enjeu géopolitique dans la France postcoloniale’, L’Espace Politique 13, (2011): para 1.

!6 I.ii Discourse & Media Analysis In this thesis the focus will be on the public and political debate regarding national identity in France. This will be assessed by means of discourse and media analysis. May (2016) states that ‘[m]edia content is an ‘artefact’ of social discourse’;7 therefore the two analyses will be introduced in combination. Equally, the analyses will be synthesised throughout this thesis in order to make the research as coherent as possible.

The importance of this type of methodological approach is supported by May (2016), who conducted a discursive analysis of the usage and response to the term ‘multiculturalism’ in French newspapers between 1995 and 2013. May emphasises how essential it is ‘to analyse the national press because it is one of the “loci” from which discursive strategies are elaborated and influence the public debate.’8 Media analysis is extremely informative for gaining insight into public perceptions as it holds significant power in terms of framing and ‘steering’ national discourse.

It can be argued that the influence of the media is particularly poignant in France. This poignancy is partly due to national legal frameworks and the French Republican ideology represented by Article 1 of the 1958 Constitution. The first article states that ‘La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale. Elle assure l'égalité devant la loi de tous les citoyens sans distinction d'origine, de race ou de religion’.9 This article signals that, for example, no official statistical data can accurately account for the number of practicing Muslims or the number of Muslim women who wear the burqa or other face veils.10 Such circumstances cannot be accurately counted because there exist no reasoned, official figures. That being said, estimates have been made, but there is much difficulty in

7 Paul May, ‘French cultural wars: public discourses on multiculturalism in France (1995-2013)’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42, no. 8 (2016): 1335.

8 Paul May, ‘French cultural wars: public discourses on multiculturalism in France’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42, no. 8, (2016): 1336.

9 ‘Constitution du 4 octobre 1958’, Legifrance, last modified December 1, 2009.

10 For a visual explanation of the variations of Muslim wearing see André Gerin, ‘Rapport d’information en application de l’article 145 du règlement au nom de la Mission d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile intégrale sur le territoire nationale’, Assemblée Nationale, January 26, 2010, 26.

!7 assessing such information. Therefore, the French media can freely participate in what Bottici (2014) terms the fabrication of the political myth.11

As an example, one can reference Le Figaro’s 1991 cover depicting, controversially, a veiled Marianne. [Figure 1] Inside the paper an entire section was dedicated to the issue of immigration in France in which the paper utilised particular scare-mongering strategies in regards to people originating from Muslim-majority countries. A similar image appeared more recently in a 2013 Valeurs Actuelles cover. [Figure 2] The cover greatly contributes towards a rhetoric that perceives a weakening or failure of the Republic in response to multiculturalism. In turn, the return of religion – specifically Islam – violates the French principle of laïcité, according to Valeurs Actuelles. The aforementioned examples demonstrate how French media can, and does, contribute to the sensationalisation of minority cultures. The French media can use a multitude of journalistic strategies to sensationalise an issue, for example: by providing a greater number of pages to a certain issue – as demonstrated above in Le Figaro – or accentuating political discourse or news stories with poignant imagery and/or political commentary. The media can also contribute towards the construction of ‘reality’ simply by elevating certain issues to the status of ‘news’ or by deeming them ‘problems’.

In a similar vein, political and public discourse will be analysed, in conjunction with media analysis, in a variety of forms including, but not limited to, political speeches, political manifestos and parliamentary reports. The media analysis is based upon four major French newspapers. The appropriately named magazine Marianne will be addressed alongside Valeurs Actuelles, Le Figaro and Le Monde. Le Figaro was added latterly to the list following the reading of May’s discourse analysis study which demonstrated the importance of the paper in the larger public debate, often thanks to its controversial nature. These papers have been chosen because of their political orientation and the balance of these orientations: Le Monde is, arguably, centre-left/non-partisan, Valeurs Actuelles and Le Figaro are right-wing whilst Marianne magazine is left-wing. Together this selection of media constitutes a balanced and well-rounded framework upon which the media analysis will be conducted.

11 Chiara Bottici, Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary (New York: Colombia University Press, 2014), 134.

!8 I.iii National Identity In Imagined Communities (1991) Anderson recognises that the nation is not necessarily something primordial but a social construction along cultural, political and imaginary lines. Anderson’s work focuses on the horizontal details of nationalism (individual to individual) rather than the vertical (state to individual): ‘the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship’.12 By contrast, this study predominantly assesses the vertical relationship. This vertical-relationship-based approach is taken primarily because visual representations and symbols are often enacted – or affected by the limitations placed on them – by state authorities. That being said, an exploration of public perceptions and media responses to the state’s imposition of national representation will be integrated into this research in order to inform all influences upon the formation of French national identity.

In his discussion of nationalism and religious affiliations, Anderson (1991) underlines the similar mentalities inferred within both, and consequently, the potential ideological clash. Anderson traces the origins of nationalism and national identity and thereby notes that in order to understand these concepts, one should acknowledge sacred communities’ visual representations because we exist in a world in which ‘the figuring of imagined reality was [and still is] overwhelmingly visual and aural.’13 Similarly, Guibernau (2013) underlines that the importance of symbolism for national and religious belonging is based upon ‘providing them with distinct attributes destined to highlight their unique character’.14 In short, one can assume that visual and symbolic representations play ‘a critical part in collective life’15 no matter what notions they may be based upon, whether of nationhood, religion, gender or race.

12 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso Editions, 1991), 7.

13 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso Editions, 1991), 22-23.

14 Montserrat Guibernau, Belonging: Solidarity and Division in Modern Societies (Cambridge, UK; Maiden, USA: Polity Press, 2013), 92.

15 Montserrat Guibernau, Belonging: Solidarity and Division in Modern Societies (Cambridge, UK; Maiden, USA: Polity Press, 2013), 94.

!9 Anderson (1991) goes on to consider the major historical influences on the ‘imagined community’ in terms of visibility including the novel and, latterly, the newspaper. Another example of visual influence upon the ‘imagined community’ was the colonised state that was used to condition ‘a human landscape of perfect visibility; the condition of this visibility was that everyone, had (as it were) a serial number’.16 In this research both the newspaper - and the wider media sphere - as well as the colonial history of France are highly significant areas to the formation of contemporary national history. However, with the decrease of illiteracy amongst developed nations, visual communication may be questioned: has visual communication become less valuable to nation-building today? Exploration of the visual representation and symbolism of the French Republic and the French people will demonstrate the continued value of visual communication in nation-building - and thereby provides an interesting and valuable area to study. This is further emphasised by the consideration of the increased dependency on visual and social medias. Visual representation of the nation remains crucial to our understanding of the ‘imagined community’, and is seen by some as increasingly important than ever before.17

I.iv Perspectives & Approaches

The following section, relating to national identity, will focus on the interaction between gender and national identity studies whilst the second section will discuss the politics of recognition and studies regarding multiculturalism. The demand for recognition often takes one of three forms: actors of minority groups, feminist groups, or by means of multiculturalist politics. Multiculturalist and feminist perspectives will be integrated into this study of French national identity in order to reflect critically on how French identity has been constructed and how the nation has been imagined along gender and ethnic/racial divides.

16 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso Editions, 1991), 185.

17 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19, no. 6 (2013): 777

!10 I.iv.a. Gender and Feminism Women, States and Nationalism: At home in the nation? (2000) provides considerable inspiration for the research approach taken in this thesis - specifically the linkage between gender and national identity. In addition, the categorisation by Yuval-Davis and Anthias (2005) of the manner in which women participate in ethnic and national processes is also useful. One category proved particularly significant and relevant to my research. It considers the role of women as ‘signifiers of ethnic/national differences - as a focus and symbol in ideological discourses used in the construction, reproduction and transformation of ethnic/ national categories’.18

This categorisation ties in with the theory of Ranchod-Nilsson and Tétreault (2000), who argue that a form of ‘cultural war’ is being ‘fought on the terrain of women’s bodies and life circumstances’.19 The centrality of the female form in French national discourse - in the political and public spheres as well as across the mediascape - is a subject worthy of further study because, as Ranchod-Nilsson and Tétreault argue, both ‘idealised images and real bodies of women serve as national boundaries’.20 In consideration of the use of female forms, the use of idealised and real female bodies as a point of conflict within the national context, rather than in comparison to other nations needs to be assessed. The reference to both ‘idealised’ and ‘real’ bodies is also relevant to my analysis of Marianne as a symbolic, idealised notion of nationhood as well as womanhood, in contrast to – but not limited to – the figure of the veiled Muslim woman: the real, ‘unidealised’ citizen. This juxtaposition brings into question the nature of national visual representation. Should national visual representations reflect national realities, or should they embody the ‘idealised’ form? What assumptions are made when female national representations and symbols are utilised?

Sexing Political Culture in the History of France (2012) gives a detailed and fascinating account of how ‘gender and sexual imagery have played a uniquely symbolic role […] at no

18 Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis, Racialised Boundaries: Race, nation, gender, colour and class and the anti-racist struggle (1992; repr., London; New York: Routledge, 2005), 7.

19 Sita Ranchod-Nilsson and Mary Ann Tétreault, eds., Women, States, and Nationalism. At home in the nation?, (2000; repr., London, New York: Routledge, 2005), 1.

20 Sita Ranchod-Nilsson and Mary Ann Tétreault, eds., Women, States, and Nationalism. At home in the nation?, (2000; repr., London, New York: Routledge, 2005), 5.

!11 time more obvious than it is at the beginning of the twenty-first century’.21 The volume gives a plethora of examples regarding the role of sexuality and gender throughout French history. My thesis does not constitute a study of sexuality in general but rather the ‘particular use to which gendered and sexual symbols have been put in the service of the nation’.22 Moreover, a secondary aim is to articulate the tensions that arise at both the political and the public level due to these engendered symbols.

Finally, the symbolisation of female bodies and how they are confined solely to the role of political or national symbols in contrast to actors at political, national level has maintained its potency to questions of national identity. Indeed, Maurice Agulhon, the French historian renowned for his in-depth, socio-historical works on Marianne, is dismayed at the idea that men receive ‘le pouvoir réel (notamment politique)’ and women, simply, ‘les fonctions de représentations’.23 Over a decade later, Moore (2012) considers whether women receive ‘purely symbolic appreciation’.24 My thesis will seek to develop this line of argumentation in order to explore whether the use of engendered visual representations and symbolism contribute to the agency of women in contemporary French society.

I.iv.b. Multiculturalism The controversy regarding veiling in the public and, increasingly, even in the private sphere has resulted in numerous legal cases as well as policy documents, parliamentary recommendations and reports. The cultural assumptions and frameworks from which these circumstances have arisen directly affects how the French Republic deals with ethnic minority populations. These communities predominantly originate from previously French- colonised countries. In light of the migratory and colonial undertones to ethnic minority relations in France, multiculturalist approaches and debate must combine with Feminist study

21Alison Moore, ‘Historicising Sexual Symbols.’ Chap 1 in Sexing Political Culture in the History of France, ed. Alison Moore (Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2012), 1.

22 Alison Moore, ‘Historicising Sexual Symbols.’ Chap 1 in Sexing Political Culture in the History of France, ed. Alison Moore (Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2012), 7.

23 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 257.

24 Alison Moore, ‘Historicising Sexual Symbols.’ Chap 1 in Sexing Political Culture in the History of France, ed. Alison Moore (Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2012), 14-15.

!12 in order to successfully analyses the tensions that are mirrored within, and projected upon, the veiled Muslim ‘immigrant’ woman. In the French public sphere, the veiled Muslim woman is regularly perceived as a postcolonial subject originating from the North African Magreb region. Perceptions are important as Simon (2011) emphasises by noting how immigrants from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa (as well as Southeast Asia) note ‘substantial mismatch between their feeling French and the perception of their otherness.’25

Multiculturalism and The Politics of Recognition (1994) underlines the importance of recognition for the identity of an individual. The identity of the individual has been given increasingly greater significance from the eighteenth century onwards. Taylor (1994) emphasises how ‘non-recognition or mis-recognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being’.26 His line of argument combines a feminist perspective with a multiculturalist rhetoric by underlining their comparability which is derived their similar motivations; ‘contemporary Feminism […] race relations and discussions of multiculturalism are undergirded by the premise that the withholding of recognition can be a form of oppression’.27 Taylor’s argumentation lends legitimacy to the approach of this essay and its combination of both multiculturalist and feminist explorations, with visual and media analysis, of ethnic-gendered political and public discourse in France.

As discussed earlier, this research will not explore the horizontal relations within a nation but rather the vertical relations such as: the state’s imposition of visual representations and the citizenry’s response(s). Again, the relations between the individual and the state may differ slightly. The most controversial aspect of public debate in France is based not upon the relation between individual and state but upon the relation between the individual and the ethnic community to which he/she belongs. In turn, this sort of relation causes tensions with regard to the principle of universality that underlies French Republicanism. This principle is

25 Patrick Simon, French National Identity and Integration: Who belongs to the National community? (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2012), 14. Paper commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration for its seventh plenary meeting, Berlin, Germany, November 2011.

26 Charles Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’: An essay by Charles Taylor, ed. Amy Gutmann. With commentary by Amy Gutmann et al. (Princeton: Princeton university Press, 1992), 25.

27 Charles Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’: An essay by Charles Taylor, ed. Amy Gutmann. With commentary by Amy Gutmann et al. (Princeton: Princeton university Press, 1992), 36.

!13 based upon the aforementioned first article of the 1958 French Constitution. The article states that no discrimination based on race or religion - neither positive nor negative - is permitted by French authorities.28 The relevance of this phenomenon to the question of this thesis is confirmed by May (2016) who states that multiculturalism is ever-present in French public debate which often results in the criticism of French authorities due to it’s assimilationist character and ‘difference-blindness’ policies.29 Accordingly, Addressing tolerance and diversity discourses in Europe (2012) confirms that the fact that French authorities do not 'recognise the intermediate level of a group or a specific community based on origin’ has prompted a surge of criticism against the French Republican model.30

Amongst Western scholarly and political actors, the French Republican model is increasingly perceived as an impractical means of dealing with the national realities of contemporary French society, which is of a highly multicultural and multi-racial demographic. Laborde’s (2006, 2008) contextualisation of the hijab controversy in French political thought is a nuanced and critical questioning of the French Republic and its liberalist self-legitimacy. Laborde follows a similar line of questioning to Taylor (1992) as she strives to assess how liberal - or illiberal - the nature of politics of blindness and difference is in French society. However, Taylor questions even the existence of ‘difference-blind’ politics; ‘[t]he claim is that the supposedly neutral set of difference-blind principles of the politics of equal dignity is in fact a reflection of one hegemonic culture.’31 Here, Taylor raises a key issue of conflict that is often raised by critics of laïcité in contemporary France as seen in La Laïcité Falsifiée (2012). According to radical advocates of the politics of difference, laïcité exists as an example of ‘blind’ liberalism, which is itself ‘the reflection of particular cultures’.32 This controversy co-aligns with issues originating from France’s colonial history. Taylor provides

28 ‘Constitution du 4 octobre 1958’, Legifrance, last modified December 1, 2009.

29 Charles Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’: An essay by Charles Taylor, ed. Amy Gutmann. With commentary by Amy Gutmann et al. (Princeton: Princeton university Press, 1992), 40.

30 Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet, ‘France’ in Addressing tolerance and diversity discourses in Europe: A Comparative Overview of 16 European Countries, eds. Ricard Zapata-Barrero and Anna Triandafyllidou (Barcelona: CIDOB/GRITIM-UPF, 2012), 28.

31 Charles Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’: An essay by Charles Taylor, ed. Amy Gutmann. With commentary by Amy Gutmann et al. (Princeton: Princeton university Press, 1992), 43.

32 Charles Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’: An essay by Charles Taylor, ed. Amy Gutmann. With commentary by Amy Gutmann et al. (Princeton: Princeton university Press, 1992), 44.

!14 a link by recognising Fanon’s Les Damnés de la Terre (1961) and noting how the coloniser’s most hazardous weapon was the imposition of the image on the colonised, subjugated community. This study recognises this phenomenon in today’s France. A multitude of questions emerge from such studies including: what does the invisibility of racial and religious difference mean for visual representations of the French Republic and nation? The laïc character of the French Republic means that, ultimately, both ethnic and religious difference are confined to the private sphere and thereby contribute to the invisibility of an entire demographic in contemporary French semiotic politics.

I.v Case Studies: Marianne & The Veiled Muslim Woman French ethnic-gendered discourse can be personified in the image of the veiled Muslim woman who is used to illuminate tensions and contradictions within the current framing of national identity in the French Republic. Different interpretations and modes of representation illuminate various tensions and contradictions in Marianne, the allegory of the French Republic; most of the time from a critical perspective. Indeed, French gendered nationalism remains prominent within gender and sexuality analysis in French politics and ideology.33 The veiled Muslim woman – similar to the Marianne who is representative of the national community in France – is often chosen as a representation of the larger immigrant demographic; ‘[c]omme avec l’orientalisme colonial, la femme voilée est choisie comme le symbole ou le signifiant pour un ordre socio-religieux entier, la communauté des immigrés’.34 Alison Moore states in Sexing Political Culture (2012) that ‘[t]he modern national phenomenon produced new habits that specifically relied upon identification with the reproduction of past antecedents as the site for the imagination of the tradition.’35 Moore’s argument resembles Chabal (2017), who also identifies the significance of immigration and colonial history on today’s French identity politics which continues to battle with its colonial

33 Alison Moore, ‘Historicising Sexual Symbols.’ Chap 1 in Sexing Political Culture in the History of France, ed. Alison Moore (Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2012), 21.

34 Cited in: Romi S. Mukherjee, ‘Marianne voilée’, Histoire, monde et cultures religieuses 34 (2015): 95.

35 Alison Moore, ‘Historicising Sexual Symbols.’ Chap 1 in Sexing Political Culture in the History of France, ed. Alison Moore (Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2012), 11.

!15 past and, by consequences, the relations between colonial-heritage French citizens and immigrants.

In this research, Marianne will be reconsidered in an academic framework as a means to examine the visibility of contemporary French national identity and what it means for the French ‘invisible minorities’. Indeed, the relevancy of Marianne to the current situation is emphasised by Mukherjee (2015), who describes how ‘elle n’est pas un projet du passé, mais de l’avenir’.36 As confirmed by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983), the re-imagination of traditional or historically- centred forms is constant as ‘nations frequently look to craft their imagery from an imagination of traditional forms’.37

Although extensive research has gone into plotting the history and integration of Marianne (Agulhon, 1979; 2001,2003, 2006; Agulhon and Bonte, 1992 and; Mitra and König, 2013) and the national rhetorics of the French Republics through history, relatively limited attention has been paid to Marianne’s significance in contemporary French society. Even less scholarly work has sought to compare the image of the veiled Muslim woman - including her utilisation and appropriation by various political actors and the media - as a type of ‘counter’ example to the French Republican, feminine ideal that is Marianne. The representative image of the veiled Muslim women as the centre of a myriad of issues in today’s France parallels the appropriation of Marianne, as a symbol of the French Republic, to address the same issues. In a 2014 interview, Maurice Agulhon confirms that the debate concerning Marianne is, in itself, a direct manifestation of the debate concerning the future of the French Republic.38

Mukherjee (2015) suggests that ‘la géopolitique et les angoisses politiques de la France projettent et se négocient alors à travers les corps féminins’39 which can be applied either to Marianne or to the veiled Muslim woman, or to both. Along with Winter (2009) Mukherjee

36 Romi S. Mukherjee, ‘Marianne voilée’, Histoire, monde et cultures religieuses 34 (2015): 105.

37 Alison Moore, ‘Historicising Sexual Symbols.’ Chap 1 in Sexing Political Culture in the History of France, ed. Alison Moore (Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2012), 11.

38 Sophie des Desserts, ‘Quand Maurice Agulhon nous racontait l’histoire du buste de Marianne’, Le Nouvel Observateur, May 30, 2014.

39Romi S. Mukherjee, ‘Marianne voilée’, Histoire, monde et cultures religieuses 34 (2015): 97.

!16 provides the most significant contribution to this particular area of study, which seeks to contrast official national images with Muslim and/or immigrant presentations of France. Moore (2009, 2012) provides a wealth of research into issues that touch upon laïcité and post-colonialism along with notions of gender and sexuality. Moore’s final chapter in Sexing Political Culture (2012) demonstrates an enduring usage of racialised women as a means of steering national rhetoric. The extent to which these two contrasting images are utilised and appropriated across the political sphere and mediascape supports the claim that the nation exists as ‘a daily plebiscite’.40 Although, arguably, this phenomenon may only refer to the idealised image of Marianne, that is not to say that the veiled Muslim woman has a lesser effect on the nation and national identity.

Here, it is useful to look at Baycroft (2008) who follows a similar line of thought to Renan (1990), as well as Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983). Baycroft underlines how national ideals are repeated on a daily basis,

‘Individual representations of the nation, from anniversaries and heroes through to Marianne (the female incarnation of the Republic) […] are made familiar to the nation through commemoration, repeated representations in statues, street names, on postage stamps and in school lessons in such a way as to encourage an automatic mental link to the abstract nation with each new viewing, constant reminders of what the nation is held to stand for.’41

An extremely important point to note in Inventing the Nation (2008) is how symbolic representations are not always official. However, if and when an image is constantly claimed as the epitome of ‘Frenchness’ it can, consequently, claim the ‘symbolic associations’ of the nation.42 In other words, a symbol may not begin as official but may become a symbol with quasi-official status thanks to its frequency and a certain significance, and a similar process can occur with claims of ‘non-Frenchness’; as is the case with the veiled Muslim woman. The

40 Ernest Renan, ‘What is a nation?’ in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha, trans. Martin Thom (London, New York: Routledge, 1990), 19.

41 Timothy Baycroft, Inventing the Nation, (London: Hodder Education, 2008), 170-171.

42 Timothy Baycroft, Inventing the Nation, (London: Hodder Education, 2008), 171.

!17 identity of the veiled Muslim woman is forever bound to a ‘historic and cultural status as [those] who have been formerly colonised’.43 In turn, the image attaches to itself or, more fittingly, has imposed upon it her non-French status, thus becoming an ‘anti-symbol’. This process demonstrates how the ideas, images and/or characteristics upon which French national and feminine identity is constructed has major implications for those ideas images and/or characteristics that are deemed to constitute the French antithetical and intra-national ‘Other’ as explored by Said (1978).

43 Timothy Baycroft, Inventing the Nation, (London: Hodder Education, 2008), 200.

!18 II. Contextualisation: Female Symbolism within the French Republic

II.i Marianne

Since the establishment of the French Fifth Republic, Marianne, the slogan Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité and the office of the President have constituted the fundamental Republican emblems.44 The relationship between the first and final emblem is significant due to the established separation between the state and the authoritative voice which emerged following the overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution. Previously, the King was the state: L’état, c’est moi and thereby constituted its main visual representation. However, with the establishment of the Fifth Republic, an anonymous visual representation of the state had to be invented.45 Since her genesis in 1792, Marianne, the allegorical icon of the French Republic, has maintained a strategic function: to reflect the value system of the French state, namely based upon liberty and equality. The allegory of the Republic is depicted or represented across the French territory in tribunals, city squares, police commissions, schools and city halls. Visual representations ‘participent à la construction d’une image au sens figuré, d’un imaginaire politique qu’elles contribuent à révéler, exprimer et traduire sous une forme frappante’.46 These representations thereby contribute towards a process of identification amongst French citizens and, equally, an acknowledgment of French national identity abroad; ‘une reconnaissance immédiate sur leur territoire comme à l’étranger.’47

Paul Trouillas (1988) argued that Marianne has ‘un double mystère: celui de son nom, celui de l’organisation de son image’.48 The latter ‘mystère’, meaning the plethora of visual interpretations and representations of Marianne and the ‘imagined community’, is

44 Blandine Le Cain, ‘Les emblèmes de la République : sacrés mais sans existence légale’, Le Figaro, August 4, 2014.

45 Marina Warner, Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form (London: Pan Books, 1985), 74.

46 Bernard Richard, Les emblèmes de la République (Paris: CRNS Éditions, 2012), 15.

47 Cloé Fontaine-Pitiot, ‘Les codes graphiques dans les documents officiels, de la Troisième République à nos jours’ in La République et ses symboles: Un territoire de signes, eds. Gérard Monier, G. and Évelyne Cohen (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2013), 376.

48 Paul Trouillas, Le Complex de Marianne (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1988), 202.

!19 increasingly important in the ‘post-literate world.’49 The act of visually representing and/or reflecting the ‘imagined community’ can be exemplified by the establishment of Une Charte Graphique in September 1999.50 [Figure 3] The charter – which remains in place today – evolved from ‘un contexte historique, l’évolution des instruments de la culture visuelle, et en particulier la multiplication récente des logotypes’.51 The aim of the chart was to establish a visual identity for the French state. This means of communication - by institutionalising the logo of Marianne on governmental papers, official correspondence, instances of governmental funding, and many other modes of governmental communication - establishes Marianne as a constant variable and, indeed, an ‘obsession’ of French society’. The constant and frequent usage of this ‘identifiant’ further embeds Marianne within a wider constructive process of French nation-building.52

The extent to which Marianne is utilised through this government logo – and in many other visualisations – recalls Michael Billig’s concept of banal ‘flagging’ or ‘reminding’ in Banal Nationalism (1995). The ubiquity of this reminding is deemed ‘banal’ as the reminding is not necessarily consciously recognised by the citizen. This lack of consciousness, in turn, makes the process all the more poignant and powerful. Billig argues that ‘[t]he metonymic image of banal nationalism is not a flag which is being consciously waved with fervent passion; it is the flag hanging unnoticed on the public building.’53 An example which demonstrates the extent to which the image of Marianne is utilised can be found in the information posters that were erected following the ban upon face-veils in public spaces in 2010. The poster, ‘La République se vit à visage découvert’ [Figure 4], consists of the government logo in which Marianne is depicted alongside a central image of a bust of Marianne. In this instance, Marianne is doubly acknowledged - both tacitly and explicitly. By consequence, French nationhood is also doubly flagged. The two images of Marianne - the bust and the logo - act

49 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19, no. 6 (2013): 777

50 See Appendix.

51 Cloé Fontaine-Pitiot, ‘Les codes graphiques dans les documents officiels, de la Troisième République à nos jours’ in La République et ses symboles: Un territoire de signes, eds. Gérard Monier, G. and Évelyne Cohen (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2013), 375.

52 ‘Charte Graphique de la Communication Gouvernementale’, Actions de Communication: Services d’Information Gouvernement, October 25, 2004.

53 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London [etc]: Sage, 1995), 8.

!20 as reminders of how she is not only significant in her role as the allegorical symbol of the French Republic but, equally, constitutes the official representation of the ideal, national citizen in female form.

In summary, just over two centuries since her first official conception, Marianne is brought to the fore of the French Republic in order to establish the visually coherence of the French governing authorities as well as the French nation. She is charged with both the power and responsibility of representation, but also with the power and responsibility to compel French citizens to follow the visual instructions of the French state. This power is reflected in the work of Maurice Agulhon, the Marianne-historian and specialist, who identifies ‘l’application d’un principe millénaire de partage des fonctions: aux hommes le pouvoir réel (notamment politique), aux femmes les fonctions de représentation, donc de charme, de séduction, d’attrait symbolique.’54 However, despite the duration of Marianne’s significance to French national identity, the perceptions and interpretations of this allegorical figure have remained dependent on the prevailing geopolitical circumstances, on issues of national interest and the collective memory of the nation. As a result, representations of Marianne are based just as much upon legend and memory as on are national historical accuracy.55 In this sense, Marianne is transformed from being emblematic of the French Republic to being symbolic of the French Republic, which implies a much more convoluted and complex history to decipher concerning the development of this allegorical icon.

The historical evolution of Marianne is convoluted and complex enough to become the central focus of the academic life of Maurice Agulhon, a leading French historian. Indeed, Agulhon published a three-part study of the feminine icon: Marianne au Pouvoir (1989); Marianne au Combat (1979) and, finally, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (2001). He also collaborated on a number of academic projects, including Marianne: Les Visages de la République (1992) with Pierre Bonte and Entre liberté, République et France (2003). By contrast, though this chapter entails a brief consideration of the historical development of Marianne, the main focus here will be the consideration of both top-down and bottom-up

54 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 257.

55 Bernard Richard, Les emblèmes de la République (Paris: CRNS Éditions, 2012), 12.

!21 influences on Marianne and her subsequent interpretations and representations. Indeed, Marianne was and remains ‘évolutif, polysémique, conflictuel’56 and is thereby worthy of further study in a contemporary setting.

II.i.a. Evolutive History

Les Emblèmes de la République (2012) accounts for the first and second ‘naissance’ of Marianne as well as the proliferation of interpretations and representations that have functioned according to the celebrity status imparted - or the wealth of knowledge acquired - amongst the French political elite and the general public. Despite the numerous changes in structure, values and government of the French Republic, the imagery of Marianne has retained a sense of fluidity between each of the subsequent governmental models: ‘l’imagerie initiale de la Troisième République [puisait] largement dans celle de la Seconde, dont les principaux artistes d’ailleurs vivaient toujours’57 and so on. It is generally agreed amongst historians that Marianne first appeared in her approximate, current form in 1792 as established by the Convention, the newly-declared Republican government.58 Delacroix’s 1830 tableau entitled ‘Liberté guidant le peuple’ was swiftly followed by the adoption of Marianne as the official symbol of the French Republic in 1848. [Figure 5] Since the installation of Marianne as an official symbol there has been a near constant confusion and/or amalgamation of Marianne with Delacroix’s Liberté in public and political discourse.

This phenomenon of contrasting and competing Marianne imagery has existed since the nineteenth century. This phenomenon has most often taken the form of government-run competitions. In 1883 the Third French Republican government headed a competition for the installation of a statue of Marianne to be situated on the Place de la République. A similar competition was held in 1889 with the prize of installation upon the Place de la Nation.59 In

56 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 250.

57 Maurice Agulhon, Marianne au Combat: L’Imagerie et la Symbolique Républicaines de 1789 à 1880 (Paris: Flammarion, 1979), 209.

58 Bronwyn Winter, ‘Marianne goes Multicultural: Ni putes ni soumises and the Republicanisation of Ethnic Minority Women in France’, French History and Civilisation 2 (2009): 229.

59 Bronwyn Winter, ‘Marianne goes Multicultural: Ni putes ni soumises and the Republicanisation of Ethnic Minority Women in France’, French History and Civilisation 2 (2009): 230.

!22 post-war France, ‘Miss Marianne’ competitions emerged paralleling global beauty pageants which attributed a female representative to each country.60 Furthermore, in 2003, Ni Putes ni Soumises coordinated with the French authorities to construct a photographic campaign entitled ‘Les Mariannes d’Aujourd’hui’. [Figure 6] The exhibition consisted of fourteen photographs of fourteen young females of North-African origin in order to produce incarnations of the iconic Marianne. These fourteen photographs were later exhibited on the exterior of the Palais Bourbon.61 Most recently, a competition was led by François Hollande to decide upon the imagery used for his presidential stamp.

However, despite the involvement of French governments across history in the erection of Marianne as its allegorical symbol, no official legalisation has been implemented. This has meant that ‘[l]a Marianne s'est peu à peu diffusée, sans que jamais l'État ne l’impose’.62 In light of this, it is somewhat surprising that Marianne has remained such an integral feature of French national symbolism. I would argue that Marianne remains so significant to national belonging thanks to this lack of official, legislative framework. ‘Il n’existe aucun texte législatif ou réglementaire déterminant l’effigie de la République. La fabrication et la vente de ces bustes sont donc laissés à l’initiative privée et chaque municipalité dispose du libre choix du modèle’.63 By lacking such a framework, Marianne thereby belongs both to the public and to the private sphere as a representative of the French Republic, which often involves the absorption of differing interpretations of national identity according to certain political or special interest groups or, most often, by the media.

Such occurrences began in 1881 with the establishment of the Freedom of the Press. From then on, Marianne was subject to a plethora of caricatures and interpretations often merging with ‘la polémique quotidienne’.64 Similar to what Agulhon correctly observed, Marianne belongs not only to French political elite but, equally, to what the public perceives as true: ‘…

60 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 119.

61 ‘L’Assemblée nationale, ultime étape de la Marche des femmes des quartiers contre les ghettos et pour l’égalité’, Assemblée Nationale, July 12, 2003.

62 Blandine Le Cain, ‘Les emblèmes de la République : sacrés mais sans existence légale’, Le Figaro, August 4, 2014.

63 Maurice Agulhon, Entre Liberté, République et France - Les Représentations de Marianne de 1792 à nos jours (Réunion de Musées Internationaux, Paris: Éditions Hors Collection, 2003), 64.

64 Maurice Agulhon and Pierre Bonte, Marianne: Les visages de la République (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), 69-70.

!23 elle appartient tout autant à l’histoire de nos conceptions et de nos institutions politiques’.65 Richard (2012) parallels this line of thought by attributing Marianne’s constant conservation of authority to the openness in terms of her interpretation and representation by others.

II.i.b. Interpretations & Confusion

Unsurprisingly, in light of the myriad of interpretations and the variety of media in which Marianne is permitted to be depicted, confusion frequently emerges surrounding the allegorical figure, at both the political and public levels. In order to understand the lack of consistency and, at times, confusion surrounding her depiction, it is necessary to discuss what Marianne should signify and what she should not – at least historically speaking.

Richard (2012) states that Marianne exists as ‘une figuration impersonnelle d’un modèle politique idéal’66 and as ‘une figure anonyme puisqu'elle représente la République’ et ne saurait être associée au comportement d'une égérie’.67 Equally, Agulhon (2001) underlines that ‘Marianne, c’est la République, idéal respectable, en principe parfait. Donc on ne peut la faire représenter par une personne vivante, nécessairement non parfaite’.68 Furthermore, the Assemblée Nationale’s website confirms: ‘Récemment, la mode a voulu qu'on donne à Marianne les traits d'artistes célèbres, mais elle a eu bien d'autres visages, aimables ou sévères, et toujours anonymes, comme en témoigne cette exposition.’69 In light of both the historical and political limitations noted above, Marianne is, above all all else: anonymous; idealistic and representative of the French Fifth Republic. However, given that representations of Marianne are founded upon no official limitations she exists simultaneously in a somewhat ‘official’ form and, equally, in an unofficial form. This results in constant confusion amongst the political elite, the media and even historians.

65 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 234.

66 Bernard Richard, Les emblèmes de la République (Paris: CRNS Éditions, 2012), 77.

67 Blandine Le Cain, ‘Les emblèmes de la République : sacrés mais sans existence légale’, Le Figaro, August 4, 2014.

68 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 190.

69 ‘Les bustes de Marianne’, Assemblée Nationale.

!24 Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (2001) maps the ‘évolution tranquille [de Marianne], d’époque en époque, d’Eugène Delacroix à Brigitte Bardot’.70 Here, Agulhon comments upon the transformation of Marianne, but the irony of this phrase is based on the fact that neither Delacroix nor Bardot should, indeed, represent Marianne. Firstly, this is due to Delacroix’s tableau depicting Liberty, not Marianne, whilst Bardot is a personal and non-idealised representation, thereby not aligning with the limitations placed upon not only Marianne but essentially all similar national allegories. [Figure 7]

Nevertheless, this confusion is easily understandable. It is not surprising that Marianne is consistently confused with Liberté guidant le peuple. Especially seeing as, at the time of her creation, the French Fifth Republic was being established as ‘un système de valeurs’ within which liberty (and equality) were of fundamental importance.71 Secondly although the amalgamation of Brigitte Bardot and Marianne are not compliant with the aforementioned limitations, Bardot is often perceived in the French media and public discourse as the epitome of French femininity; she exists as a sort of idealistic version of personal – rather than anonymous – ‘Frenchness’.

After having briefly contextualised the historical and scholarly development with examples of both historical and contemporary interpretations, it is valuable to note what this information reveals. Most obviously, it implies that Marianne does not exist outside of internal and external influences. She exists in a world of competing symbolic visions of French ideals in an official yet simultaneously non-official paradigm. Furthermore, it shows that Marianne is consistently appropriated as a means of representing the French nation rather than the French Republic itself as she is consistently pulled between representing the French ‘ideal’ to the French reality. Mitra and Konig (2013), however, define Marianne as an icon and define icons as ‘simplifying mechanisms that capture what ardent nationalists would like their nations to embody ideally.’72 Mitra and Konig complicate this discussion once again by inferring that Marianne should represent the nation (rather than the Republic) but should

70 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 209.

71 Bernard Richard, Les emblèmes de la République (Paris: CRNS Éditions, 2012), 13.

72Subrata K. Mitra and Lion König, ‘Icon-ising national identity: France and India in comparative perspective’, National Identities 15, no. 4 (2013): 357.

!25 do so idealistically rather than realistically. By representing national identity along realistic rather than idealistic lines, Warner (1985) foresees a great challenge for the nation, since ‘[t]o place a real woman in the place of the ideal challenges the ever-elusive character of the ideal itself’.73

II.ii The Veiled Muslim Woman As Marianne came to be presented as directly reflecting or realistically representing the nation, it is not surprising that she is often utilised in the media to represent present-day political tensions or societal controversies at the national level.74 Her integration into the media sphere parallels the entry of the veiled Muslim woman - and the immigrant population for which she is representative - as a ‘mediatised phenomena’.75 But why are iconography and, more generally, visual stimuli - such as Marianne and the veiled Muslim woman - used so frequently in both Western media and political spheres? Richard (2012) states that;

‘Au sens littéral, les images s’adressent à la sensibilité, aux émotions, à l’imagination plutôt qu’à l’intellect, à la raison: elles n’en ont pas moins un impact direct sur le public visé - et touché. Par là, elles jouent un rôle important dans la vie politique et entrent en résonance avec la société.’ 76

In this sense, Richard (2012) accounts for the merging between the national image and political circumstance within the media sphere. Once again, it is useful to underline how Marianne is often placed in opposition to the veiled Muslim woman – although, at times, the two figures do merge rather than being contrasted. Macdonald (2006) accounts for how the mainstream media are obligated to achieve a reconstruction of difference structurally and along aesthetic and visual lines.

73 Marina Warner, Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form (London: Pan Books, 1985): 287.

74 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001): 238.

75 María Martínez Lirola, ‘Positive aspects of women of different cultures: an analysis of two multimodal covers’, The Poster 1, no. 1 (2010): 78.

76 Bernard Richard, Les emblèmes de la République (Paris: CRNS Éditions, 2012), 15.

!26 Indeed, the importance of the visual media or use of visual clues within the media system is important to underline in this brief introduction to allegorical symbols, specifically Marianne. This becomes particularly important when considering the importance of visualisation to human understanding in Western, Christian cultures – it is certainly not a phenomenon exclusive to the media. This was stressed in the Rapport d’information en application de l’article 145 du règlement au nom de la Mission d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile intégrale sur le territoire nationale by Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen, a Modern Art historian at École Normale Supérieure who stated that;

‘grâce au double héritage de la Grèce et de Rome, où la figure humaine est au centre de la culture et de l’art, donc de nos références, le visage et le corps sont investis en Occident d’une force et d’une reconnaissance qui n’existent probablement pas dans autres cultures’.77

As mentioned above, the image remains or, indeed, is increasingly important in the ‘post- literate world’.78 Then again, according to Laneyrie-Dagen, the image remains equally important thanks to the cultural emphasis upon the visualisation of human form in Christian culture, particularly when one makes the comparison between Christian culture and Islamic culture according to which calligraphy is perceived as superior to the icon.79 It is significant that Marianne remains important to the representation of French national identity in the twenty-first century thanks to European cultural – as well as national – historical factors. This cultural and civilisational remains all the more so important to the study of Marianne especially when considering her cultural contrasts with the veiled Muslim woman.

77 André Gerin, ‘Rapport d’information en application de l’article 145 du règlement au nom de la Mission d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile intégrale sur le territoire nationale’, Assemblée Nationale, January 26, 2010, 32.

78 Behiery, V., ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19, no. 6 (2013): 777.

79 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19, no. 6 (2013): 784.

!27 II.ii.a The Nation’s other So far, Marianne’s transformation has been mapped: from representation of the Republic to representative of the nation. This transformation has been analysed by Agulhon (2001) who forewarns of the importance of choosing who or what Marianne does in fact represent; ‘Marianne représentait le peuple, ou la Nation, et qu’il fallait donc choisir bien - en l’occurence mieux choisir - la catégorie de Françaises qui serait présumée typique’.80 Agulhon goes on to suggest that, since representing the nation insinuates that Marianne constitutes a basis for national identity construction, it is equally important to discuss who is Marianne’s, and thereby France’s, Other. Of course, national identity is based just as much upon what it is as what it is not. In turn, Marianne, as a ‘signe d’identité d’une nation opposable aux nations voisines’81 must retain recognition as representative of French national identity by the French national community itself as well as those abroad in order to maintain her authoritative significance.

This ability to be recognised has been re-instilled by the implementation of the aforementioned Charte Graphique in 1999. Indeed, if one agrees with the hypothesis that Marianne remains to be connected with the French national identity, the veiled Muslim woman, by contrast, is often utilised to convey the national Other. In fact, the veiled Muslim woman is depended upon to such an extent that she is utilised to convey a problematising of Islam regardless of relevancy.82 In other words, the veiled Muslim woman is used to represent a myriad of controversies which encompass an Islamic or immigrant theme because she - and specifically the symbol of the burqa - is consistently produced as the Other in modern Euro-American self identity. This is achieved by way of consistent and frequent utilisation of the veiled Muslim woman in politico-media discourse and imagery.83

80 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 203.

81 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 144.

82 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19, no. 6 (2013): 777.

83 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19, no. 6 (2013): 780.

!28 This will be discussed much further throughout the course of the third and fourth chapters but it is important to underline here, as it is connected to the cultural history of visualisation of national identities. Marianne remains a significant area of research but it has been fairly limited in scope, either assessed from a historical perspective or, ultimately, deemed no longer significant to contemporary national identity in France. Moreover, there is an extremely limited amount of research contrasting the figure of Marianne with the figure of the veiled Muslim woman. Despite this lack of scholarly focus and an ever-changing Marianne, the figure remains a consistent site of reference – both visually and discursively – in contemporary French discourse; especially in the consideration of national identity. By considering such developments in the symbolism and representation of the French Fifth Republic, this piece of research will seek to map important developments in contemporary French society.

II.iii Laïcité & A Veiling History In order to understand the potency of the imagery and discourse utilised in politico-media contexts - and the developments in contemporary French society that they reflect - it is important to understand the historic and contemporary ideologies and events from which this imagery and discourse evolve. Of course, the aim of this piece of research is not to consider the legal or policy constraints imposed by the French Republican model, be it historically accurate or not. Rather, the focus will be on the construction of national identity to which the utilisation of female forms contributes. The impact of laïcité and the historical background to controversies such as the burqa ban and the burkini scandal is crucial in order to effectively analyse and assess the uses of these female forms. Here, a contemporary reading of the history of veiling controversies, through the lens of laïcité, will be addressed in order to situate the most recent controversies (the the burqa ban and the burkini scandal) in the religious/laïc paradigm.

In essence, laïcité exists as the cornerstone of the French Republic. Laïcité is highly influential - if not synonymous with - French national identity. The dynamism between laïcité and national identity accumulates in French responses to issues which involve le voile

!29 musulman. Laïcité is ingrained in national identity politics to such an extent that debate on national identity can equally be entitled as debate on laïcité. This is seen most accurately in the actions of then-President Nicolas Sarkozy between 2009 and 2010 which are succinctly summarised in La laïcité Falsifiée (2014) which argued that Sarkozy’s launch of his polemic debate on national identity served as a discussion about Islam. This also constituted a debate about laïcité. All in all, laïcité cannot be gauged without considering the Muslim community in France. In turn, Islam in contemporary French society cannot be considered without accounting for the effects of laïcité upon French national identity.

In light of this, the history of laïcité must be addressed together with the controversies surrounding the policies that penalise - explicitly or implicitly - veiled Muslim woman in France. The most notable area of interest is the implementation of policies that, arguably, yield to the parameters of laïcité and the extent to which these are contested. These contestations largely emerge from the dilemma brought about by the entrenchment of laïcité within French national identity. The conceptualisation of laïcité has become ‘un concept de valise’ as observed by Jean-Louis Bianco, President of the Observatoire de la laïcité.84 By this, Bianco exemplifies that laïcité is being increasingly attached to a certain perspective; a laïcité falsifiée; restrictive; de combat; ouverte/fermée or laïciste.85 Hence, the exploration necessitated is two-fold: concerning the origins of laïcité and, secondly, the influences that have contributed towards its transformation.

At its origin, laïcité existed as a concept that sought to maintain the neutrality of the state vis- à-vis religion (including all state-related and public bodies). The law ‘concernant la séparation des Eglises et de l’Etat’ was passed on the ninth of December 1905. It is most frequently invoked in debates regarding laïcité; albeit somewhat ironically. Firstly, the reference is made ironic by the fact that the concept of laïcité is not explicitly referenced in

84 Stéphanie, Le Bars, ‘À quelle laïcité se vouer en France?, Le Monde, January 9, 2014.

85 This adjectives derive from an array of academic and political analyses that are occupied with defining laïcité in the twenty-first century. For some of the most notable discussions see: Cécile Laborde, Critical Republicanism: The Hijab Controversy and Political Philosophy (2008, repr., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) and Jean Baubérot, La laïcité falsifiée (Paris: Éditions: Éditions La Découverte, 2014).

!30 the aforementioned law.86 Secondly, it is often understood to constitute the antithesis of religion; which is wholly incorrect.

Although France exists as ‘une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale’ the French Constitution of 1958 – like the 1905 law – ensures the respect of religious beliefs, ‘La République assure la liberté de conscience. Elle garantit le libre exercice des cultes sous les seules restrictions édictées ci-après dans l'intérêt de l'ordre public.’87 Today, however, it is taken as a given that laïcité exists as a societal framework against which blanket bans on all religious practices can be prohibited. Implementation of laïcité, touching upon the inner workings of French national identity and state policy, has, in turn not only to encompass the establishment of state neutrality but has also become a tool for integration, as was most notably underlined by the Rapport d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile intégral sur le territoire national: ‘[l]e principe de laïcité doit être — aujourd’hui plus encore qu’hier — l’un des moteurs les plus puissants de l’intégration’.88 Islam, in particular, has been the focus of a wealth of increasingly restrictive policies and discourse that have been established in the name of laïcité, most notably, those concerning the wearing of Muslim (partial or full) veils by Muslim women. Yolande Jansen (2013) explains that the concern of laïcité vis-à-vis integration underlines the ‘cultural layer in laïcité as a public discourse’.89

The Affaire du Foulard represents the first major occurrence in the veiling saga of the French Fifth Republic. From March 2004, a law banning all religious signs of an ostentatious character in public schools was adopted. The law states that ‘dans les écoles, les collèges et les lycées publics, le port de signes ou tenues par lesquels les élèves manifestent ostensiblement une appartenance religieuse est interdit’. This was followed closely by the burqa ban which entered into force in April 2011 and the dubious burkini scandal in the summer of 2016. These three major controversies have been interspersed by similar issues

86 ‘Loi du 9 décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des Eglises et de l’Etat’, Legifrance, last Modified July 25, 2015, http:// www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070169&date-Texte=20080306.

87 ‘Loi du 9 décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des Eglises et de l’Etat’, Legifrance, last Modified July 25, 2015, http:// www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070169&date-Texte=20080306.

88André Gerin, ‘Rapport d’information en application de l’article 145 du règlement au nom de la Mission d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile intégrale sur le territoire nationale’, Assemblée Nationale, January 26, 2010, 88.

89 Yolande Jansen, Secularism, assimilation and the crisis of multiculturalism: French Modernist Legacies (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013), 206.

!31 throughout twenty-first century France, including the case of the Baby loup creche and the banning of veiled mothers collecting their children from public schools.90 Of course, the transitionary or ‘tumbleweed’ narrative that both French media and the political elite alike continue to reinforce does hold a certain validity; despite each of the controversies maintaining a distinctive logic. Emile Chabal (2017) argues that the history of policy vis-à- vis veiling is not necessarily sequential. Indeed, he goes on to argue that to assume that the Affaire du Foulard correlates directly with the burqa ban may well have a ‘stultifying effect’ on scholarly research.91

The media have remained fixed to each of these three major veiling debacles. This is partly due to the resonance of these debacles in both public and political spheres, as well as the fact that they were extremely multi-facetted controversies which evoked postcolonial, feminist, civilisational, and identity-based argumentation from all corners of French society. Arguably, the extent of the public response also involved the way in which policies were decided upon, namely government-mandated commissions. Government-mandated commissions have constituted the preferred mechanism of debate and discussion on matters particularly regarding the questioning of Islamic religious clothing practices for women vis-à-vis laïcité.92 These commissions incorporated not only members of the political elite but also philosophers, intellectuals and organisation representatives. Consequently this process recognised, and thereby validated, all voices of French society in the decision-making process. This encouraged an intense public response making of the Affaire du Foulard (and the subsequent controversies) a ‘public conflict’.93

Muslim women who veiled themselves were consistently and purposefully removed from the decision-making process as well as all relative debate or discussion likely because they were perceived as part and parcel of the problem. The controversies showed a clear refusal of the

90 McCann, E., ‘Baby Loup: An Exceptional Case? An Analysis of the Nature of Laïcité in Contemporary France’, Bachelor diss., University College Cork, 2015.

91 Emile Chabal, ‘From the banlieue to the burkini: the many lives of French republicanism’, Modern & Contemporary France 25, no. 1 (2017): 85.

92 Jennifer A Selby, ‘Un/veiling Women’s Bodies: Secularism and Sexuality in Full-face Veil Prohibitions in France and Québec’, Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 43, no. 3 (2014): 445.

93 Yolande Jansen, Secularism, assimilation and the crisis of multiculturalism: French Modernist Legacies (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013), 196.

!32 French Republic to acknowledge the complexities of the French-Muslim community and French society on the whole. Instead Republican ideology, in its refusal to admit visibility to Muslim communities, homogenises the community and the diversity of veiling fashions and reasoning. Particularly, as Hennette-Vauchez (2010) reports, the use of the term ‘burqa’ in French media constitutes a form of provocation as it is often negatively associated with the Taliban in Afghanistan. 94 Yet, the burqa ban marked a clear development vis-à-vis laïc policy on veiling seeing as [d]ésormais, ce qui pose problème, ce sont bien les femmes en burqa elles-mêmes.95

In line with Chabal’s line of argument, it is important to acknowledge that each of these controversies does not necessarily derive from the same origins, nor do their policy structures mirror each other. However, the argument that the controversies do follow the same master narrative does hold some legitimacy. In summary, these occurrences are not constructed in isolation, but make for a long line of relative events that have been built upon the backdrop of an ever-changing laïc framework. Similarly, each controversy directly concerns itself with the veiling of Muslim women’s bodies. Be they barely pubescent girls to mature women - the perpetual control of female bodies – explicitly Muslim female bodies – remains consistent in the discourse of laïcité. In turn, this narrative remains tied to the idea that ‘la république française ne sera-t-elle pas un État sans corps ni visages pour le figurer.’96

In conclusion, despite the historical accuracy or inaccuracy of laïcité that is implied through national identity discourse and demonstrated in national policy, laïcité still acts as a cornerstone of French Republicanism. Although, admittedly, the law appears to be ‘plus célèbre que connue’, 97 exemplified by Le Figaro, which notes the separation between l’Église et de l’État when, in truth, it defines the separation between des Eglises and the state.98 Or, the realisation that laïcité concerns the state and not its citizens (with the

94 Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez, S., ‘La burqa, la femme et l’Etat: Réflexions sur un Débat Actuel’, Rai-son-Publique - arts- politique - société, May 12, 2010. Accessed September 2016.

95 Elsa Dorlin, ‘Le grand strip-tease: féminisme, nationalisme et burqa en France’ in Ruptures postcoloniales: Les nouveaux visages de la société française, eds. Nicolas Bancel et al. (Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2010): 438.

96 Bernard Richard, Les emblèmes de la République (Paris: CRNS Éditions, 2012), 79.

97 Baubérot, J., La laïcité falsifiée (Paris: Éditions: Éditions La Découverte, 2014).

98 Eugénie Bastié and Guillaume Perrault, ‘Ce que contient la loi de 1905 sur la laïcité’, Le Figaro, September 14, 2016.

!33 exception of those individuals who work on the behalf the state): ‘une obligation de neutralité de l’Etat envers les citoyens et non pas une obligation idéologique des citoyens envers l’Etat.’99 And, finally, the parameters within which laïcité is rightfully implemented are constantly evolving as well meaning that whilst ‘[e]n 1905, la rue prolongeait l'espace privé. En 2013, il y a la tentation que la rue prolonge l'espace d’Etat.’.100 In any case it appears that ‘what matters most is that republicanism be fitted into a vast historical canvas stretching back to the French Revolution and beyond’.101

Increasingly, laïcité serving as a discursive tool to maintain policy legitimacy, rather than a constitutional safeguard. The essence of laïcité remains firmly attached to the present-day national dynamics within French society and within its government.102 French national identity discourse routinely legitimises the idea that ‘la laïcité serait un élément de la culture politique nationale toujours plus menacé, sans jamais cesser d’être un horizon idéal vers lequel tendre’.103 Just as Marianne is embedded in French cultural identity laïcité, as the cornerstone of the French Republic, is thus forced to adapt to the cultural identity of contemporary French society. Here, it is essential to keep in mind the usage of laïcité in regards to the cultural, civilisational – if not racist – rhetoric that goes along with policies on veiling. Despite French Republicanism striving to become a ‘universal and trans-historical value system, its very plasticity makes it highly dependant on specific contexts.’104 Laïcité continues to evolve but only in the sense of expansion or deepening, not necessarily in the sense of astute adaptation to national realities in contemporary France.

99 Etienne Balibar, ‘Laïcité ou identité ?’, Libération, August 29, 2016.

100 Stéphanie Le Bars, ‘À quelle laïcité se vouer en France?’ Le Monde, January 9, 2014.

101 Emile Chabal, ‘From the banlieue to the burkini: the many lives of French republicanism’, Modern & Contemporary France 25, no. 1 (2017): 68.

102 Eugénie Bastié and Guillaume Perrault, ‘Ce que contient la loi de 1905 sur la laïcité’, Le Figaro, September 14, 2016.

103 Valérie Amiraux, ‘De l’Empire à la République: l’ “islam de France” ’ in Ruptures postcoloniales: Les nouveaux visages de la société française, eds. Nicolas Bancel et al. (Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2010): 390.

104 Emile Chabal, ‘From the banlieue to the burkini: the many lives of French republicanism’, Modern & Contemporary France 25, no. 1 (2017): 69.

!34 III. French, Feminine & Feminist?

III.i. Burdening the Body In 2016, then-Prime Minister of France Manuel Valls insisted that ‘Marianne elle a le sein nu parce qu’elle nourrit le peuple, elle n’est pas voilée parce qu’elle est libre ! C’est ça la République !’. With these words, Valls establishes Marianne’s nudity as an indicator of the Republic’s success in establishing women’s rights.105 In turn, Valls affirms since her body is ‘free’ from clothing she, as an individual, is thereby ‘free’. Although this may appear reductive, this mindset is nothing new in French body politics. In 2004, the Affaire du Foulard brought about a wave of criticism voiced by ‘Republican Feminists’ who perceived the Islamic veil as contrary to women’s rights. During the Affaire du Foulard ‘equality became synonymous with sexual emancipation, which in turn was equated with the visibility of the female body’.106 This mirrors what Yuval-Davis (1997) argued: that women act and are utilised as ‘border guards’ of the national collective and its borders in that they are closely linked to specific cultural codes of stye of dress and behaviour.107

This Republican Feminism, that became particularly prominent during the Affaire du Foulard, has been overtly maintained in both media and political discourses about the recent ‘burkini gate’. Such feminism has often been supported by major French celebrities as seen in, for example, the petition against ostentatious religious dress in schools published by Elle - a leading French magazine; Elisabeth Badinter - a leading French Feminist philosopher at L’École Polytechnique; the Ni Putes Ni Soumises organisation as well as more unlikely characters such as ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It may appear somewhat surprising, given that France’s self-perception as ‘standard bearers on gender equality’108 is common across Europe. In turn, this self-perception instills a framing of female emancipation as a

105 Le Monde, ‘Marianne, le voile et les droits des femmes : les propos de Valls agacent une historienne’, August 30, 2016.

106 Joan Wallach Scott, The Politics of the Veil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 156.

107 Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London: Sage Publications,1997), 23; 46.

108 Gender Equality, cultural diversity: European comparisons and lesson, 26.

!35 European value. This consequently evokes notions of post-colonialism and neo- colonialism.109

In order to understand the French Republican Feminism, it is of vital importance to underline some of the key players. Ranchod-Nilsson and Mary Ann Tétreault point out, in Women, States and Nationalism (1982), that to focus only on gendered representations of symbols rather than women’s activism within nationalist social movements undermines the diversity of female activism.110 However, in contrast to previous studies, this essay seeks to combine these two areas by an analysis of symbolic representations of women as a means of establishing their agency at national level. This analysis will seek to provide an understanding of the racial and/or ethnic tensions that are found in the French Feminist movement. This purpose of this discussion is not to outline the objectives of mainstream French feminism but to establish how the female body - whether laïc or Muslim - is burdened with meaning and significance that thereby influences both French feminist rhetoric and, also, the wider societal framing of national identity. Indeed, as Winter (2008) affirms, ‘the peculiarities of French feminism and antiracist activism’ is especially important to the specificity of the French hijab - and, moreover, the wider ‘veiling’ debate.111

III.i.a. Femen Femen, a feminist organisation founded in Kiev in Ukraine by Anna Hutsol, emerged onto the political stage in 2008. To simply assume the influence of Femen on French political discourse is reductive. Instead, the group can provide a much more insightful point of interest in terms of the female body; ideals of femininity and the intersectionality of French feminism in contemporary society. The Third-Wave feminist group has sustained a cultural framing of female emancipation as constituted by the naked female form. They protest in the nude because their naked bodies symbolise their own liberation as women: ‘Nous sommes nues car

109 Salem, S., ‘Les Femen, un féminisme de type néocolonial’, Le Monde, June 13, 2013.

110 Sita Ranchod-Nilsson and Mary Aan Tétreault eds., Women, States and Nationalism. At home in the nation? (London: Routledge, 2005), 6.

111 Bronwyn Winter, The Hijab and the Republic (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2008), 5.

!36 nous sommes féministes.112 Here, one must acknowledge that although perceived as radical by many, Femens’ views – especially those connected with the laïc framework – reflect the principal line of thought in mainstream politics. Although Femen may be deemed visually and ideologically radical, their laïc and anti-Islam rhetoric falls into a very similar line of argumentation as that found in French mainstream political discourse.113 By aligning its vision of an emancipated French woman with a culturally-accepted constant of French nationhood – laïcité – Femen maintains its legitimacy through ‘symbolic associations’.114

An example of this parallel between Femen and mainstream national identity rhetoric is seen in the aforementioned speech made by Manuel Valls in 2016. The speech was held in Colomiers (Haute-Gauronne), a stronghold of the Socialist Party in France. The fact that the speech occurred in the lead-up to the 2017 French presidential elections demonstrates the relevancy of Marianne to the French nation and national values which French presidential campaigns focus heavily upon. During his speech, Valls essentially equated Marianne’s manifestation of her chest with her personal emancipation as a woman, which is secured by the French Republic. The ex-Prime Minister's interpretation greatly parallels Femen’s ‘corps- discours’115 and, in turn, demonstrates how the female form - be it naked or covered - is highly significant to the cultural framing of female emancipation in France. Another parallel between Femen and Marianne can be seen in the work of Paveau (2014) and her comparison between Femen and Delacroix’s ‘Marianne’. Although Paveau mistakes the tableau’s figure of Liberty for Marianne, she inaugurates the two figures as part and parcel of the same group: ‘ces figures de femmes qui combattent avec leur nudité’.116

As yet, the naked female form - and the emancipation that the form represents - has been the key point of comparison between Marianne and Femen. However, Marianne and Femen

112 Marie-Anne Paveau, ’Quand les corps s’écrivent. Discours de femmes à l’ère du numérique’ in Recherches de visages. Une approche psychanalytique, ed. Éric Bidaud (Paris: Hermann, 2014),13.

113 Katrin Smiet, ‘One Size fits all? Femen and the limits of Feminist Secularism’ in Gender and Activism: Women’s voices in Political Debate, eds. Mieke Aerts et al. (Hilversum: Verloren, 2015), 29.

114 Timothy Baycroft, Inventing the Nation (London: Hodder Education, 2008), 172.

115 Marie-Anne Paveau, ’Quand les corps s’écrivent. Discours de femmes à l’ère du numérique’ in Recherches de visages. Une approche psychanalytique, ed. Éric Bidaud (Paris: Hermann, 2014), 3.

116 Marie-Anne Paveau, ’Quand les corps s’écrivent. Discours de femmes à l’ère du numérique’ in Recherches de visages. Une approche psychanalytique, ed. Éric Bidaud (Paris: Hermann, 2014), 14.

!37 physically represent a specific proportion of the French demographic. By being so, they appeal to mainstream French feminism that explicitly and/or implicitly links feminism with a specific, westernised version of femininity that, by consequence, jars with the Muslim Other. 117 In light of this, the norms of Femen can be argued to be based upon ‘la féminité blanche’.118

The Muslim Other is defined by the act of veiling reacting negatively according to French perceptions of womanhood and femininity. French psychoanalysist Élisabeth Roudinesco went so far as to argue that Muslim woman who choose to veil themselves lose their ‘feminine identity’ entirely.119 Here veiling is presented not as representative of a religious distinction but a cultural and ethnic one. This hypothesis is reiterated by Thorsten Botz- Bornstein in Veils, Nudity and Tattoos (2015) who affirms: ‘[N]either veil nor non-veil is nature, but both are culture’.120 The loss of feminine identity through veiling pairs gender with an explicit cultural basis which, as Laborde (2008) reports, ‘serves to gloss over the culturally biased and imperfectly realised nature of the valued ideals of Western societies’121. This is most explicitly signified by Femen’s protest in Paris in 2012 where they protested against the wearing of the burqa. Written across their signs and naked torsos read was the line, ‘Nudity is freedom’ and ‘France, déshabille - toi’.122 [Figure 8] Dalibert and Quemener (2016) note that between August 2012 and December 2013, a total of 250 articles were devoted to Femen.123 Arguably, this solidifies the influence of Femen upon the political and

117 Marine Gheno, ‘The FEMENist Connection: Ruptures and Agency in FEMEN France’, Multilingual Discourses 2, no. 1-2 (2015): 62.

118 Marion Dalibert and Nelly Quemener, ‘Femen. La reconnaissance médiatique d’un féminisme aux seins nus’, Mots. Les Langages du politique 111 (2016): 89.

119 Joan Wallach Scott, The Politics of the Veil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 157.

120 Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, Veils, Nudity and Tattoos (Maryland: Lexington Books, 2015), xii.

121 Cécile Laborde, Critical Republicanism (2008; repr., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 163.

122 See: Katrin Smiet, ‘One Size fits all? Femen and the limits of Feminist Secularism’ In Gender and Activism: Women’s voices in Political Debate, (eds.) Mieke Aerts et al., (Hilversum: Verloren, 2015), 25 and Marine Gheno, ‘The FEMENist Connection: Ruptures and Agency in FEMEN France’, Multilingual Discourses 2, no. 1-2 (2015): 64.

123 Marion Dalibert and Nelly Quemener, ‘Femen. La reconnaissance médiatique d’un féminisme aux seins nus’, Mots. Les Langages du politique 111 (2014): 90.

!38 public sphere by instilling an ideology that argues ‘l’émancipation des femmes non blanches serait ainsi corrélée à la monstration de leur poitrine’.124

III.i.b. The Real & The Idealised Once again, this particular notion of feminine identity – deemed by some as a highly ‘eroticised notion of femininity’125 – combined with national identity, entered the media spotlight in 2013. Olivier Ciappa, as employed by the French President François Hollande, presented a new postal stamp depicting a cartoonish Marianne. [Figure 9] This interpretation of Marianne was directly inspired by Inna Shevchenko – the leader of the Femen movement. Here, specific, cultural notions of femininity were presented in the form of Marianne as an ‘icon of French womanhood’126 however, once again, Liberty is mistakenly understood to be Marianne. Ciappa explained his inspirations for the new stamp by asserting that;

‘Moi, j'avais besoin de personnes qui représentaient le côté révolutionnaire de Marianne. J'avais collé au-dessus de mon bureau une photo du tableau d'Eugène Delacroix La Liberté guidant le peuple. Et plus je regardais cette révolutionnaire qui se bat seins nus, plus elle me faisait penser aux Femen.’127

The response to the unveiling of this new and controversial presidential stamp was considerable. The heightened response suggests that the French remain emotionally tied to the symbol of Marianne; as the emblem of the French Republic. Most notably, the stamp asked whether it is possible to combine the idealistic and iconographic symbol with the realistic female-subject? Salle (2012) notes that Femen bring about empowerment through their nudity; ‘les Femen donnent un visage aux corps féminins dénudés qu’elles font œuvre politique, parce qu’ainsi la femme nue n’est plus seulement sous les regards, elle (re)devient

124 Marion Dalibert and Nelly Quemener, ‘Femen. La reconnaissance médiatique d’un féminisme aux seins nus’, Mots. Les Langages du politique 111 (2014): 97.

125 Anna Kemp, ‘Marianne d’aujourd’hui : The Figure of the beurette in Contemporary French Feminist Discourses’, Modern & Contemporary France 17 (2009): 23.

126 Subrata K. Mitra and Lion König, ‘Icon-ising national identity: France and India in comparative perspective’, National Identities 15 (2013): 362.

127 Olivier Ciappa, ‘Le nouveau timbre Marianne : autopsie d'une fausse polémique’, Le Monde, July, 19, 2013.

!39 sujet politique revendiquant, sujet agissant’ .128 This begs the question: can Femen bring about such a change with the case of Marianne and, more generally, amongst women? Can they bring about change in what Maurice Agulhon (2001) deemed the female function which consists of ‘les fonctions de représentation, donc de charme, de séduction, d’attrait symbolique. [Italics added]’? 129 If indeed Femen is capable of bringing about such a change, and one is to agree that nudity infers female emancipation, what does this mean for veiled Muslim women in France?

According to their website, Smiet (2015) observes that, in mimicking the Bible, Femen replaces ‘the word with the body’.130 By contrast, Laborde (2008) insists that the forced act of liberating women by removing the veil ‘simply re-inscribes women’s bodies as symbols of culture rather than individual agents.’131 Laborde thereby problematises the protests and ideologies of Femen, and the wider mainstream French Feminist community by integrating the notion of racial and ethnic difference into an already polemic debate. More often than not, veiled Muslim woman have no or limited political agency - at least in political and media discourse. The figure is often utilised and appropriated by official authorities without being given their own platform from which to speak. This objectification of veiled Muslim woman, by removing their agency, is exemplified in a range of academic analyses of Le Rapport de la Commission Stasi sur la Laïcité which evolved from the Affaire du Foulard in 1989.132

Whilst Femen uses women’s sexuality as both a symbol of their empowerment and emancipation, it is also used as tactic to gain media attention. This mirrors the usage of Muslim women’s bodies as a tactic to spark controversy by the media itself. Dalibert and Quemener (2016) argue that the media continues to legitimise the opposition between emancipated/nude and oppressed/veiled through its appropriation of Muslim women’s bodies and exaggerated opposition implied in the framing of nude and/or sexualised female ‘French’

128 Celine Delacroix, ‘Les Femen, belles ‘femmes à poil’, c’est quoi le problème?’, OpenEdition, November 28, 2012.

129 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 257.

130 Katrin Smiet, ‘One Size fits all? Femen and the limits of Feminist Secularism’ In Gender and Activism: Women’s voices in Political Debate, (eds.) Mieke Aerts et al., (Hilversum: Verloren, 2015), 17.

131 Cécile Laborde, Critical Republicanism (2008; repr., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 133.

132 Cécile Laborde, Critical Republicanism (2008; repr., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 161.

!40 bodies. In summary, the opposition between emancipated/nude and oppressed/veiled orients ‘le débat public d’une interrogation sur la permanence d’un sexisme et d’un racisme systématiques’.133 Despite the divergence between the different cultural phenomena or identities these process seek to imply, they coincide with each other in their consistent utilisation of female bodies to frame national identity. From idealised images to real women’s bodies, ‘[c]’est la situation de la femme qui sera alors prise comme thème d’action’134.

III.ii. Cultural Framing: Burkinigate In order to re-situate the female form in the most recent sage concerning the burkini it is useful to return to Valls’ comments who equated a certain mode of dressing which consisted of the visualisation of the body with a cultural-specific perception of sexual equality. Overall, the burkini scandal defined a key moment in French sexual politics. The principal theme of the emerging discourse was threaded with ideas about Western modernity and its associated modes of dress. The burkini, most accurately and manifestly, juxtaposed Western ideals of nakedness with the perception of an ever-apparent, obsession with the Muslim veiling amongst Muslim women in France. For many, Republican liberal feminism has established the institutionalisation of cultural racism along with a refusal to recognise a form of cultural imperialism in the discourse, policy and laws of the French Republic.135 Ten years before the beginnings of the burkini scandal, Brown (2006) expressed her confusion as to why the questioning of ‘compulsory’ feminine dress was unheard of in Western society. She went on to argue that to question Western cultural assumptions would indeed have ‘undercut this idea of superiority’ and, thus, the authority of the French Republic.136 Al-Saji (2010) contests the complicity of Western civilisation and its assumption that women, localised in the West, are

133 Marion Dalibert and Nelly Quemener, ‘Femen. La reconnaissance médiatique d’un féminisme aux seins nus’, Mots. Les Langages du politique 111 (2016), 100.

134 Quoted in Claire Hancock, ‘Le corps féminin, enjeu géopolitique dans la France postcoloniale’, L’Espace Politique 13 (2011): para. 22.

135 Susanna Mancini, ‘Patriarchy as the exclusive domain of the other: The veil controversy, false projection and cultural racism’, International Journal of Constitutional Law 10, no. 2 (2012): 419.

136 Wendy Brown, Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 189.

!41 ‘free’ by way of ‘[d]iscourses on the veil [which] present themselves as overtly feminist while their racism remains hidden.’137

III.ii.a. Femininity à la française Trouillas (1988) reflected upon women's exposing their breasts on French beaches as a Republican ritual. He suggests that; ‘les français qui exposent leur seins sur les plages se transformeraient, inconsciemment, en “Marianne aux attributs” et retrouveraient un rituel républicain.’138 According to Trouillas’ analysis, bodily exposure was not a simple, common occurrence but, by a means of transforming the female individual into a citizen of the Republic, even an ‘ideal’ citizen. In the midst of the ever-growing scandal, Nicolas Sarkozy problematised the burkini not only for French national identity, but because it constituted ‘une mode de vie’. In turn, he actively deferred all responsibility for upholding French cultural standards to the modes of dress by Muslim women on French beaches.139 In summary, bodily exposure on French beaches constitutes an act of nationalisation. The analysis of Trouillas therefore appears to remain highly relevant to the burkini debacle; the act of de-robing on beaches constitutes a physical and visual act of ‘becoming French’.

This form of ‘nationalisation’ can easily be applied to the influence of clothing on granting or denying citizenship in France. Such a form is highly reflective of the assimilationist ideology of the French Republic occurrent in both colonial and contemporary settings. Assimilation, for example, first appeared in the late 1980’s with colonising projects where the civilising culture was imposed upon the colonised peoples. Similarly, in 1927, the term ‘assimilation’ was transferred to the French metropole where the goal was that the ‘spécificités culturelles, religieuses ou sociales disparaissent afin que [les immigrants] deviennent semblables en tout point aux Français.’140 In July 2008, the Conseil d’État refused citizenship to a Moroccan, niqab-wearing woman. The case involved a full-face veil-wearing woman who was denied

137 Alia Al-Saji,‘The Racialisation of Muslim Veils: A Philosophical Analysis’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 36, no. 8 (2010): 888.

138 Paul Trouillas, Le Complex de Marianne (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1988), 264.

139 Marc de Boni, 'Interdiction du port du voile dans la rue : le camp Sarkozy entretient le flou’, Le Figaro: Scan Politique, October 5, 2016.

140 Anne Chemin, ‘Intégration ou assimilation, une histoire de nuances’, Le Monde, November 15, 2016.

!42 French national identity because through the wearing of the niqab she retained an aspect of her ethnic identity and, it was argued, symbolised incomplete assimilation.141

The history of assimilationist policies in France demonstrates how French national identity has both interior and external dimensions; ‘looking and sounding French’ are as important as feelings of national belonging.142 Fanon (1965) underlines the significance of these external dimensions for those wanting to establish their Frenchness ; ‘[t]he way that people clothe themselves, together with the traditions of dress and finery that custom implies, constitutes the most distinctive form of a society’s uniqueness, that is to say the one that is the most immediately perceptible.’143 This invisibility of veiled Muslim woman is juxtaposed within contemporary imagery and discourse with the veil itself: a ‘hyper visible symbol of gender oppression’.144 This insinuates that the bodies beneath the veil are thereby forgotten, thus forcing a one-dimensionality onto women of Muslim background. These themes can be frequently recognised in the media’s framing - especially vis-à-vis the burkini, ‘signe visible d'agressivité identitaire’145; but equally in regards to the burqa, le voile intégral.

For example, the September 2016 issue of Valeurs Actuelles depicts a women wearing a hijab, a tunic and jeans, standing in the sea at a beach - presumably in the south of France. [Figure 10] In Orientalism, Said underlines the Orient as a ‘semi-mythical construct’.146 By this statement, Said denotes that it is actually the sense of the unknown that underlines the status as Other which can, subsequently, be accurately matched with the imagery used in Valeurs Actuelles, where the veiled Muslim woman’s face is blurred so that she is portrayed

141 In reality, the woman (Faiza Silmi) had met the actual, formal conditions of citizenship. But from 2003, the French government could intervene in naturalisation process. Ultimately, Minister Eric Besson intervened and argued that she be denied French identity because of her insufficient assimilation; with which the Conseil d’État agreed. See: John Bowen, ‘How the French State Justifies Controlling Muslim Bodies: From Harm-Based to Values-Based Reasoning’, Social Research 78, no. 2 (2011), 411-435.

142 Patrick Simon, French National Identity and Integration: Who belongs to the National community? (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2012), 1. Paper commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration for its seventh plenary meeting, Berlin, Germany, November 2011.

143 Frantz Fanon, ‘Algeria Unveiled.’ Chap 1 in A Dying Colonialism, trans. Haakon Cheavalier (New York: Grove Press, 1965), 35.

144Alia Al-Saji,‘The Racialisation of Muslim Veils: A Philosophical Analysis’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 36, no. 8 (2010): 882.

145 Mathieu Bock-Côté, ‘Burkini : derrière la laïcité, la nation’, Le Figaro, August 18, 2016.

146 Edward Said, Orientalism (1978; repr. London [etc.]: Penguin Books, 1995).

!43 as obscure and evasive. As mentioned above, veiled Muslim woman are often unheard of in mainstream media accounts of veiling debacles. According to Berg and Lundahl (2016), veiling the body confirms this one-dimensionality of the Muslim woman is confirmed and thereby the viewer can impose upon the figure ideas and values without justification or evidence. By consequence, both processes - the mystification of and the imposition of superficiality - means that, for the veiled Muslim female figures; ‘[t]he message about the “freedom to appear” becomes a brutal act to appear according to dominant norms or simply disappear’ like the blurred face of the anonymous female figure on the beach.147

A similar process can be perceived in the framing of the image in the magazine itself. The image is accompanied by sub-headlines that pinpoint issues of national security such as terrorism: ‘les terroristes nourris aux aides sociales’ whilst the main headline reads: ‘Soumission: Enquête sur cet Islam politique qui défie la France’.148 Here, two analyses need to made: to consider what the newspaper means by ‘cet Islam’ and secondly, to distinguish who or what is under ‘soumission’. According to the phrase ‘cet Islam’, the reader assumes a negative connotation. This negative connotation is two-fold as it refers to both this form of Islam and the veiled Muslim woman, who exists as the representative of the Islam in question. Moreover, by linking the figure to terrorism and social benefit fraud, the newspaper deems the figure a threat not only to themselves but to the entirety of French society.

Most often, the link between veiled Muslim women and their physical visibility - or the lack thereof - has been linked to colonial and sexual control; as exemplified above by Frantz Fanon.149 According to Mazurski (2015), the typified obsession with bodily visibility on behalf of veiled Muslim women, occurs to such an extent that the West exhausts the use of the tragic stereotype of the veiled Muslim woman as the ‘victim of a repressive patriarchy’.150 The neocolonial if not racist undertones to this process are most accurately expressed by the

147 Linda Berg and Mikela Lundahl, ‘Un/veiling the West Burkini-gate, Princess Hijab and Dressing as Struggle for Postsecular Integration, Culture Unbound 8, no. 3 (2016): 275.

148 For an analysis of the securitisation of Islam in Western civilisation see Peter O’Brien, The Muslim Question in Europe: Political Controversies and Public Philosophies (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 2016).

149 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19, no. 6 (2013): 781.

150 Lara Mazurski, ‘Besieged by burqas: analysing representations of the burqa’ (PHD diss., University of Amsterdam, 2015), 25.

!44 images taken in 2016 depicting a Muslim woman being forced to de-veil by numerous policemen on a beach in Cannes, a city situated in the southeast of France and renowned as a ‘bastion of far-right politics’. 151 [Figure 11] These images can be read as the continuation of colonial practices where the French held control over the clothing of Algerian women. Indeed, this imposition of cultural responsibility towards women in combination with the framing of relieving them from their patriarchal societies. Ultimately, however, these processes render Muslim women ‘silent, submissive and invisible’.152 For example, the imagery that emerged from the Stasi interviews can be read in parallel with the imagery mentioned above and the historical practices. [Figure 12] The image of the two French men, in the upper half of the frame, staring down at the anonymous veiled Muslim woman recalls, simultaneously, the images seen in 2016, as well as the historical practices during the French Empire.

This image can provide an interesting comparative with Femen, and particularly the work done by Gheno (2015). Gheno’s study reflects upon the awkwardness of when uniformed policemen are ‘juxtaposed’ with the naked bodily protests of Femen. [Figure 13] She goes onto to argue that Femen retains agency by ‘reclaiming their bodies as emotional, personal, and political sites’ and thereby creates a potent, politically-charged and discursive image that is subsequently publicised by the media.153 Comparatively, the two images – of a Femen protest and the enforced de-robing of a veiled Muslim woman - are consistent in the sense that they both provide an attachment of political potency to nude, female bodies as well as the involvement of males ‘in charge of power and control.’154 However, whilst Femen gain agency by utilising their bodies as a media tactic, the veiled Muslim woman is positioned in a much more vulnerable position deprived of the independence of her bodily visibility. The two images can also demonstrate a conflict between Femen and their perspective on the diversity of the Feminist movement. By infantilising Muslim women who veil, Femen, despite being

151 Emile Chabal, ‘From the banlieue to the burkini: the many lives of French republicanism’, Modern & Contemporary France 25, no. 1 (2017): 71.

152 Meghan Tinsley, ‘Marianne Musulmane: Burkini-Gate and French National Identity’, Blog of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Comparative and Historical Sociology, September 30, 2016.

153 Marine Gheno, ‘The FEMENist Connection: Ruptures and Agency in FEMEN France’, Multilingual Discourses 2, no. 1-2 (2015): 76.

154 Marine Gheno, ‘The FEMENist Connection: Ruptures and Agency in FEMEN France’, Multilingual Discourses 2, no. 1-2 (2015): 76.

!45 radical in some senses – both visually and otherwise – they ultimately comply with and, indeed, sanction the principal narrative found in the mainstream media in France.

Despite the principal narrative demonstrating compliance with the dominant Republican feminist liberalism, many artists interpreted these occurrences through a more explicit postcolonial and/or feminist lens. Madame Le Figaro – a sister magazine of Le Figaro – published a collection of reactions to the burkini scandal. The cartoonist LECTRR produced a humorous yet acute display of French national identity through the use of the figure of Marianne in her infamous revolutionary, Delacroix-style figuration – with one breast uncovered. A veiled burkini-clad women is seen staring upwards at the female icon. [Figure 14] If one is to expand upon this interpretation, the two female figures could function as symbols for womanhood, whereby the imagery appears to imply that Marianne, as depicted within the the upper section of the photograph, ultimately represents the ideal whilst the veiled Muslim woman is obliged to use the example of Marianne as a way of becoming an (ideal) French citizen.

The imagery discussed here draws upon numerous connections with the processes of de- veiling that are paralleled during the time of the French colonies. The question of ‘S’habille- t-il à la française?’155 found in naturalisation interviews during the colonial project is seemingly resurrected in its contemporary form: se déshabille-t-elle à la française? The question of the national importance and potency of female bodies remains deeply ingrained in French national identity narrative. By contrast, it would appear difficult to pinpoint a moment in French history during which the male body was perceived by both media and the political elite alike as being just as controversial and culturally significant to national politics.

III.ii.b. Mothers of the Nation

During the burkini scandal, another journalistic strategy that was often seen - reflective of typical national imagery – is the linkage made to motherhood. Across the French mediascape, the standard visual used presents a Muslim women, clad in a burkini (or similar clothing as

155 Anne Chemin, ‘Intégration ou assimilation, une histoire de nuances’, Le Monde, November 15, 2016.

!46 seen above in Figure ) and surrounded by children and/or in the midst of child-caring. As primary care-givers, women are labelled as the biological and social reproducers of future citizens of the nation-state and therefore constitute the ‘producers and transmitters of national culture’.156 Moreover, they also maintain the power to transform this nationally-categorised culture.157

The imagery used in the media [Figure 15, 16 & 17] demonstrates an awareness amongst the media of the role of mothers in the transmission of culture. According to Yuval-Davis (1997), women’s roles as ‘intergenerational reproducers of culture’ are affected by their behaviour and clothing: ‘[w]omen, in their “proper” behaviour, their “proper” clothing, embody the line which signifies the collectivity's boundaries’.158 Accordingly, the media appear to take advantage of the controversy that arises when the aforementioned process is threatened, as shown by the inferred vulnerability of the nation’s children as raised by ‘radical Islamists’, women who are perceived so because of the fact that they wear the burkini. Of course, it goes without saying that the fact that children are repeatedly seen in images relating to the burkini scandals of 2016 simply because parents often accompany their children to the beach during the summer months. However, the frequency with which burkini-clad women are depicted in the media accompanied by minors - or with minors in the frame - appears exaggerated. Situating this pattern of imagery that emerged during the burkini scandal within a broader insecurity over national identity makes it difficult to deny the relevancy of this mise-en- scène.

As already mentioned, women-as-mothers imagery is firmly established in the nation- building discourse and the construction of national identity: it is certainly not limited to the media sphere.159 Marianne was, and is still today, frequently characterised with maternal characteristics. Indeed, one interesting comparable image to those of the burkini scandal can

156 Sita Ranchod-Nilsson and Mary Aan Tétreault eds., Women, States and Nationalism. At home in the nation? (London: Routledge, 2005), 6.

157 Nira Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias, eds. Woman-Nation-State (Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989), 7.

158 Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender & Nation (London [etc.], Sage Publications: 1997), 46.

159 See Jan Jindy Pettman, ‘Boundary Politics: Women, Nationalism and Danger.’ Chap 11 in New Frontiers in Women's Studies: Knowledge, Identity and Nationalism, ed. Mary Maynard and June Purvis. London: Taylor & Francis, 2005.

!47 be demonstrated by a governmental communication poster concerning government spending [Figure 18]. It adorns a visualisation of motherhood à la française: the public advertisement depicts a Caucasian women dressed in a long white dress and the infamous Phrygian hat. The campaign is demonstrative of the modern phenomenon that replaces the ‘Déesse-République’ with ‘une aimable jeune femme digne représentante - ou bien représentative - du peuple français de son temps’.160 The publicity campaign emerged against a backdrop of identity insecurity and tensions concerning immigration. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, the uniformity of French national identity representation was contested.161 Throughout her history, Marianne’s representations have consistently been an issue of contestation, particularly when she is symbolised through the form of a realistic, female form; ‘La République l’a faite un peu reine de France. Mais une reine, ou mère, contestée’.162 The phenomenon was also apparent vis-à-vis the creation of President Hollande’s stamp.

All in all, the images depict motherhood and sharply mark the difference between realistic and idealistic motherhood. In addition, The burkini scandal underlined how ‘body visibility has become increasingly conflated with both embodiment and subjectivity’.163 In turn, political and media responses have led the way in homogenising Muslim women time and time again.164 This one-dimensionality granted to veiled Muslim women mirrors an additional tendency in public and political discourse which undermines the diversity of veiling fashions.165 The burqa and the burkini are most commonly discussed as transitional forms of clothing. They are either blurred, aligned with the other or perceived as a precursor and descendant. However, the items are significantly different: one leaves the face fully visible, whilst the other – the burqa – has no facial visibility whatsoever. In short, the burkini, or ‘la

160 Maurice Agulhon et al., Entre Liberté, République et France - Les Représentations de Marianne de 1792 à nos jours (Réunion de Musées Internationaux, Paris: Éditions Hors Collection, 2003), 17.

161 Elise Barthet, ‘Marianne enceinte, une pub polémique’, Le Monde, February 19, 2010.

162 Maurice Agulhon and Pierre Bonte, Marianne: Les visages de la République (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), 119

163 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19, no. 6 (2013): 781.

164 Linda Berg and Mikela Lundahl, ‘Un/veiling the West Burkini-gate, Princess Hijab and Dressing as Struggle for Postsecular Integration, Culture Unbound 8, no. 3 (2016): 265

165 Myra Macdonald, ‘Muslim Women and the Veil’, Feminist Media Studies 6, no. 1 (2006): 8.

!48 burqa de la plage’166 is in fact nothing comparative to the voile intégral because it does not cover the face, as pointed out by Jean-Louis Schlegel, the Editorial Director of the journal Esprit.167 This confusion is partly down to the lack of disassociation in their terminology – namely attributed to the inventor of the burkini, Aheda Zanetti.168

Although physically they may be incomparable, the burqa ban and the burkini scandal both fall under the broader umbrella of French identity politics and, certainly, reflect the importance placed upon visibility in French society. All in all, the burkini scandal was intensified by an extremely normative attitude adopted by mainstream media outlets as well as politicians.

166 François-Xavier Bourmaud, 'La gauche se divise sur le burkini’, Le Figaro, August 24, 2016.

167 Jean-Louis Schlegel, ‘ “Quand le burkini affole la laïcité française” ’, Le Monde, September 9, 2016.

168 Adrien Sénécat, ‘Petite histoire du « burkini », des origines aux polémiques’, Le Monde, August 17, 2016.

!49 IV. Feminism versus Multiculturalism

IV.i. The Burqa Ban In July 2009 a proposal was made to create a committee to investigate into ‘la pratique du port de la burqa et du niqab sur le territoire national’.169 The proposal was supported by a total of fifty-eight députés, the majority of them coming from the right-wing party L'Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP), then lead by Nicolas Sarkozy. Although the proposal for a investigatory commission was ultimately accepted; changes were made regarding the terminology of the commission. The updated commission would focus on the practice of the ‘port du voile intégral’ rather than the burqa and niqab explicitly, as the title states: Rapport d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile intégral sur le territoire national.170 This change in terminology is representative of a wider political discourse in contemporary France that has often homogenised veiling fashions.

For example, in 2015, Nicolas Sarkozy was criticised for having stated that he did not want any veiled women in France on the grounds of gender equality. His lack of specificity concerning what sort of veil fashion he indeed meant - and, accordingly, the insinuation of what level of religiously- affiliated Muslim woman - led him to be heavily criticised for xenophobia and racism.171 That being said, this sort of discursive malpractice is not uncommon; terms like the burqa, niqab or voile are used with inconsistency. Media efforts which seek to educate citizens (and politicians) on the diversity of veiling habits ultimately tend to encompass all veiling styles. Despite their best efforts, the article in Madame Le Figaro mentioned above- ultimately contributed to the homogenisation of Muslim veiling all the more.172 Through comparison, it could be argued that the commission’s change in terminology was made for ease of understanding. The Gerin Report – named after the President of the Commission, André Gerin – was partnered by a sister report by the Conseil

169 http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/13/propositions/pion1725.asp

170 André Gerin, ‘Rapport d’information en application de l’article 145 du règlement au nom de la mission d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile intégrale sur le territoire nationale’, Assemblée Nationale, January 26, 2010.

171 Le Figaro,‘Sarkozy: contre le voile au nom de ‘l’égalité' hommes/femmes’, February 19, 2015.

172 Le Figaro: Madame,‘Voile, burqa, niqab... ce que dit la loi en France’, October 5, 2016. http://madame.lefigaro.fr/societe/ voile-burkini-burqa-ce-que-dit-la-loi-en-france-240816-115966

!50 d’État, France’s highest administrative court, which made use of the same basic terminology173.

As already mentioned, the burqa and niqab are frequently confused in political and public discourse. The burqa proved to be the more provocative symbol in national identity discourse in France. This phenomenon can be situated within a broader Western European civilisation framework where the burqa became increasingly visible in the media. The broader Western European cultural theme that can be identified within national identity politics often utilised the burqa to suggest an increase in the visibility and influence of Islam upon society, particularly poignant in a post-9/11 world that increased the visibility of Muslim woman in Western media.174 The 9/11 attacks perhaps explains why the burqa-clad Muslim woman appeared with increasing frequency in political campaigns.

The burqa-clad Muslim woman has visually proliferated in political campaigns across Europe. With distinctly territorially-bound characteristics, the veiled Muslim woman was regularly defined as invading the nation of France, if not the entire European territory. In 2010, the far-right political party, Le Front National, took advantage of this growing public mistrust by juxtaposing a Muslim women wearing a niqab with an image of the French metropole covered in minarets, with the caption ‘Non à l’Islamisme ’ [Figure 19]. Although the poster visually resonated with French audiences, its significance was, somewhat paradoxically, concerned with the invisibility that the Muslim women embodied. This visualisation of Muslim women lead to mounting identitarian anxiety amongst the French who labelled them ‘métaphores d’enjeux de contrôle territorial’.175 Furthermore, the civilisational and territorial distinction was reinforced by the European Court of Human Rights which reaffirmed the legitimacy of the ban in 2014.176

173 ‘Étude relative aux possibilités juridiques d’interdiction du port du voile intégral’, Conseil d’État, March 25, 2010.

174 Myra Macdonald, ‘Muslim Women and the Veil’, Feminist Media Studies 6, no. 1 (2006), 19.

175 Clare Hancock, ‘Le corps féminin, enjeu géopolitique dans la France postcoloniale’, L’Espace Politique 13, (2011).

176 Uzma S. Burney, ‘European Court of Human Rights Upholds France’s Ban on the Full-Face Veil’, American Society of International Law 19, no. 3 (2015). Accessed June 2017. https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/19/issue/3/european-court- human-rights-upholds-frances-ban-full-face-veil.

!51 Notably, the burqa itself is adorned with a hyper-visible characteristic as underlined by Al- Saji (2010). This ‘hyper-visibility' is subsequently mirrored and thereby accentuated by the establishment of other hyperbolic characteristics. Then-President of Conseil français du Culte Musulman, Mohammed Moussaoui described the full face as a ‘signe d’un hyper- individualisme religieux’ and whilst Raphaël Liogier, Sociology professor at l'Institut d’études politiques d’Aix-en-Provence, described the niqab as ‘hyper-volontaire’.177 The response to the burqa was exaggerated both in terms of its characteristics but also the actual number of woman wearing it. In any case, the issue was deemed deserving of two major governmental and court reports; despite the fact that the issue only concerned fewer than two thousand women at the time of publication which had mysteriously evolved from fewer than four hundred, at the time of proposition of the investigatory commission.178

Göle (2011) affirms that it is largely on the basis of the visibility of Islam that the mobilisation of collective passions and public debates occur in Western civilisations.179 The burqa ban is, as are the veiling debacles more generally, not exclusively a religiously-based phenomenon. Laïcité politicised the burqa to such an extent that it became no longer a religious symbol but a politico-cultural one. The identity thus constructed was an ethnic and racially-based identity that was territorially formed: ‘Islam crosses the geographical borders by means of immigration, but it also transgresses the invisible cultural boundaries of the European public sphere.’180

The burqa ban – remaining firmly situated within an identitarian political discourse – emerged from a perceived discordance with the cultural foundations of the West. Although this discourse involves a distinct civilisational or religious connotation it is important to perceive the burqa ban as a conflictual phenomenon which is much more complex than

177 André Gerin, ‘Rapport d’information en application de l’article 145 du règlement au nom de la mission d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile intégrale sur le territoire nationale’, Assemblée Nationale, January 26, 2010, 392 & 469.

178 André Gerin, ‘Rapport d’information en application de l’article 145 du règlement au nom de la mission d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile intégrale sur le territoire nationale’, Assemblée Nationale, January 26, 2010, 392 and Elsa Dorlin, ‘Le grand strip-tease: féminisme, nationalisme et burqa en France’ in Ruptures postcoloniales: Les nouveaux visages de la société française, eds. Nicolas Bancel et al. (Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2010): 429.

179 Nilüfer Göle, ‘The public visibility of Islam and European politics of resentment: The minarets–mosques debate’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 37, no. 4 (2011): 387.

180 Nilüfer Göle, ‘The public visibility of Islam and European politics of resentment: The minarets–mosques debate’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 37, no. 4 (2011): 387.

!52 simply religious. Indeed, Sarkozy himself underlined that that the burqa did not constitute ‘un problème religieux’.181 Indeed, laïcité, despite used in media and public discourse, was not the basis for the law. Instead, greater emphasis was placed on values of equality amongst men and women as well as the framing of the full-face veil as a threat to public order; ‘[c]’est une question d’ordre public, la laïcité n’est pas concernée’.182 The advisory report by the Conseil d’État enabled the French government to essentially ‘market’ the full-face ban as a threat to public order rather than upon laïcité.

The civilisational ‘East versus West’ dichotomy that undercut the burka-ban conflict meant that the ban appeared to be based on an ethnic – rather than a religious – distinction. With laïcité maintaining a central position in French national identity discourse, many argued that, in light of the burka ban, laïcité was ethnocentric. For example, Jean Baubérot described how laicité had thus transformed into a ‘catho-laïcité’.183 This dichotomy, as presented in the previous chapter, was

IV.i.a The Face of the Other The significance accorded to visibility vis-à-vis the burka ban, is comparable to the burkini scandal. However if the burkini scandal emphasised the visibility of the physical form – specifically that of the female body – the burqa ban, by contrast, focused much more on the face itself. Behiery (2013) claims that, despite this emphasis placed upon the visibility of the body, the face remains ‘the most unique feature of the human body, the hallmark of individuality and a site necessary to intersubjective relationships and communication.’184 Indeed, the situating of the face in social interaction is underlined in the Gerin Report, which insists that ‘la communication entre membres de la société implique la possibilité de voir le visage d’autrui’.185 Citing Mondzain (2010) Behiery goes on to state that the act of covering

181 Stéphanie Le Bars, ‘Pour Nicolas Sarkozy, “ce n'est pas un problème religieux” ’, Le Monde, June 23, 2009.

182 Sonya Faure, ‘Du voile aux crèches, dix ans de polémiques laïques’, Libération, January 21, 2015.

183 Stéphanie Le Bars, ‘À quelle laïcité se vouer en France?’, Le Monde, January 9, 2014.

184 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19 (2013): 783.

185 André Gerin, ‘Rapport d’information en application de l’article 145 du règlement au nom de la mission d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile intégrale sur le territoire nationale’, Assemblée Nationale, January 26, 2010,3 32.

!53 the face is detrimental to the cultural belief that vision is need to be capable of speech. In turn, such an act has the potential to destabilise ‘the foundational narratives of the Euro- American imaginary and its structuring of self.’186 In light of this analysis, the burqa does not imply but, indeed, determines the failure of social interaction in Western civilisation. In addition, the above analysis puts considerable emphasis upon the Christian heritage found in the West; indeed, the ‘face and image [are] rooted in the theology of the Divine becoming image/visible’ thereby Western Christian civilisation firmly privileges the face and visibility expectations.187

The civilisational theme carries on in regards to the specificity of the visibility-debate that enflamed the burqa rhetoric in France. Civilisational distinctions, combined with ethnic discrimination, brought about a debate which focused predominantly on visuality in terms of communication and maintaining public order which thereby provoked a a greater racialised- based rhetoric. This can be foreseen in 2009, in the shadow of the impeding legislation which would seek to ban full-face veils in public spaces, then-president Nicolas Sarkozy made a speech directly concerned with national identity. In the same breath, Sarkozy underlined the necessity to debate national identity in France and confirmed the severity if France did not take measures against the burqa which would lead to a ‘champ libre à tous les extrémismes.’188 Sarkozy’s speech and the subsequent nation-wide debate – including a total of three hundred and fifty public meetings held in the first three months – would provide the structural foundation for the future burqa ban and; to a slighter lesser degree the burkini debate.189

Sarkozy's efforts to convince French citizens of the need to speak about national identity reflects a great sense of identitarian insecurity. Where as the subsequent burkini scandal would be argued on the grounds of gender equality, the burqa debate reflected a much

186 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19 (2013): 783.

187 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19 (2013): 783.

188 Nicolas Sarkozy, ‘Discours de M. Le Président de la République’, Présidence de la République, November 12, 2009.

189 Patrick Simon, French National Identity and Integration: Who belongs to the National community? (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2012), 2. Paper commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration for its seventh plenary meeting, Berlin, Germany, November 2011.

!54 broader problematisation of race and immigration in France. Kastoryano and Escafré-Dublet (2012) note that the French tend to use the term ‘nationality’ – and, to a lesser degree, ‘national origin’ – rather than ethnicity. Sarkozy’s discourse concerning national identity discursively gestures towards ethnic minorities and, by consequence, matters of immigration. This link between immigration and nationality as the fundamental focus of Sarkozy’s speech can be supported by the establishment of the Ministère de l’Immigration, de l’Intégration, de l’Identité nationale et du Codéveloppement in 2007.190 Indeed, this interpretation can be supported by subsequent by Eric Besson, Sarkozy’s Minister of Immigration who insisted that the debate was indeed not ‘focalisé sur l'immigration et l’Islam’.191

IV.ii. Identity Politics In contrast to the burkini scandal which would ultimately be argued to a greater extent on the grounds of gender equality, the burqa ban reflected a much broader problematising of immigration, national identity and race. Indeed, as Behiery (2013) affirms:

‘Identitarian insecurity makes the inferior racialised other all the more constitutive of identity, explaining further the entrenchment and proliferation of a system of signs – including that of the burqa – marking otherness as well as the reactive reflex of banning these markers’.192

Most importantly, the influence of Muslim burqa-clad women upon identity in politics would lead to a perceived symbolic jarring with the values of the French Republic; as Behiery affirms above. The reference to Republican values is a frequent occurrence in French national identity politics. However, the burqa signalled the emergence of a new form of discourse, as demonstrated by Eric Besson, the then-Minister of Immigration and National identity who

190 Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet, ‘France’ in Addressing tolerance and diversity discourses in Europe: A Comparative Overview of 16 European Countries, eds. Ricard Zapata-Barrero and Anna Triandafyllidou (Barcelona: CIDOB/GRITIM-UPF, 2012), 33.

191 Le Monde, ‘Pour Besson, le débat sur l'identité nationale “n'est pas focalisé sur l'immigration et l’islam” ’, January 4, 2010.

192 Valerie Behiery, ‘Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective’, Social Identities 19 (2013): 789n29.

!55 affirmed that ‘la burqa est inacceptable et contraire aux valeurs de l'identité nationale’.193 In this instance, Besson did not underline the values of the Republic but those confined to French national identity. The burqa ban was thus situated well within the boundaries of identity politics. Identity politics has the tendency to focus heavily on immigration however, the political and public discourse across the veiling history of France continued to present the veil – specifically the burka – as ‘une altérité culturelle apportée par l’immigration [de l’Orient]’.194

Following the line of the civilisational and/or cultural barriers that define French national identity, it is useful to look at texts that study French patterns in cultural discrimination discourse in comparison to those in other Western European countries. This is particularly important since the the civilisational struggle found within the French identity debate is often firmly localised in a European – or Western – context which is further highlighted by a number of works that have contributed towards the study of discourses regarding Muslim communities and/or practices across Europe.195

Asad et al. (2009) argued that if the Danish Muhammed cartoon scandal had incorporated a more explicit racial categorisation it would have been deemed discriminatory, and therefore illegal in many European contexts. By contrast, different forms of discourse making reference to ‘Muslim’ remains because the West absolutises Islam as a purely religious and/or ethnic phenomenon. This form of discourse is successfully accepted by French audiences because the discrimination continues to occur ‘in the name of culture, yet avoiding explicit racialising’,196 in part thanks to the political ideology of French Republicanism and its claims to colour-blindness. This ideology of colour-blindness has been heavily criticised by many

193 Le Monde, ‘Besson relance le débat sur l'identité nationale’, October 26, 2009.

194 Eric Conan, ‘Le vivre-ensemble au défi de la burqa’, Marianne, March 15, 2015.

195 See Peter O’Brien, The Muslim Question in Europe: Political Controversies and Public Philosophies (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 2016) and Anna C. Korteweg, A and Gokce Yurdakul, ‘Rejecting the Headscarf in France.’ Chap. 2 in The Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014).

196 Linda Berg and Mikela Lundahl, ‘Un/veiling the West Burkini-gate, Princess Hijab and Dressing as Struggle for Postsecular Integration, Culture Unbound 8, no. 3 (2016): 278.

!56 scholars as being a pretence for ensuring the erasing of certain visibly-different members of French society197.

Similarly, Koomen et al. (2013), who conducted cross-national research on the discursive framing of the integration of Muslims and Islam at political level in Europe parallels the aforementioned hypotheses. Koomen et al. demonstrate that France, alongside Germany, is relatively unaccommodating when it comes to cultural rights.198 Their study shows that ‘[v]ery specific and negative political claims appear to find less resonance’ in France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom; in contrast to Germany. That being said, Koomen et al. note that this should not be confused with a better performance per se. Instead, the results insinuate that 'specific and native claims are to a greater degree found to legitimate expressions in the public debate.’199 In other words, strict accommodation policies are legitimised and socially accepted thanks to the ‘normative strength of French Republicanism’.200

This can be further supported by Korteweg et al. (2014) who show similar findings which originate from a decision regarding the full-face veil by the Conseil d’État in 2008. The decision affirmed the denial of French citizenship to a Moroccan-Muslim woman because she wore a niqab (albeit mistaken for a burqa in media discourse). She was denied because of her adoption of this ‘radical practice’, which was perceived as incompatible with Republican values and a ‘défaut d’assimilation’.201 The decision was in spite of her being already firmly established in France. She was married to a Frenchman, mother to three French-born children and wore the niqab ‘more out of habit than of conviction’.202 Korteweg et al. underline that

197 Patrick Simon, French National Identity and Integration: Who belongs to the National community? (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2012), 16. Paper commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration for its seventh plenary meeting, Berlin, Germany, November 2011.

198 Maarten Koomen et al., ‘Discursive framing and the reproduction of integration in the public sphere: A comparative analysis of France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany’, Ethnicities 13, no. 2 (2013): 198.

199 Maarten Koomen et al., ‘Discursive framing and the reproduction of integration in the public sphere: A comparative analysis of France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany’, Ethnicities 13, no. 2 (2013): 206

200 Maarten Koomen et al., ‘Discursive framing and the reproduction of integration in the public sphere: A comparative analysis of France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany’, Ethnicities 13, no. 2 (2013): 207.

201 Le Monde, ‘La Burqa, symbole’, July 11, 2008.

202 Valérie Amiraux and David Koussens, From Law to Narratives: Unveiling Contemporary French Secularism (Augsburg, Germany: Recode Working Paper Series, 2013), 9.

!57 the denial of citizenship by the Conseil d’État heralded limited media attention despite significant divergence between the Conseil d’État’s reasoning and decisions made during the Affaire du Foulard. In summary, they affirm that the decision demonstrates how firmly established the supporting for gender equality was in the French national narrative, as secured by the values of the French Republic.203

In summary, it can be confirmed that through the use of laïcité and Republicanism as ‘discursive resources’,204 French Republicanism is legitimised despite lambasting and/or homogenising an entire community and dissimilar reasoning or definitions.

IV.ii.a. Immigration Immigration, race, and apparent cultural discrimination accumulate in controversy often in reaction to physical or visual stimuli, as exemplified by the case of the cartoons scandal in Denmark or in France with Charlie Hebdo. Therefore, it seems clear why physical and visual stimuli would be used in political campaigns and controversial media commentaries to create an emotive response amongst the national collective. As Guibernau (2013) confirms, national symbols ‘prompt strong emotions’; it is thus unsurprising that Marianne was often appropriated in media, political and public responses to the burqa ban.205 Furthermore, as previously mentioned, the veiled woman is chosen as a symbol for the immigrant, racialised community – ‘un ordre socio-religieux entier’206 – whilst Marianne represents the ideal citoyenne. The morphing of Marianne with the veiled Muslim woman, or the conscious juxtaposing of the two figures as each representative of the absolute antithesis of the other, appears most often in French national discourse. During the burqa ban debate, the veiling fashion utilised in the political and media discourse was reflective of the contemporary controversy; thereby the fashion was often a ‘burqa’ or a ‘niqab’ despite certain exceptions. In

203 Anna C. Korteweg, A and Gokce Yurdakul, ‘Rejecting the Headscarf in France.’ Chap. 2 in The Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 39.

204 Anna C. Korteweg, A and Gokce Yurdakul, ‘Rejecting the Headscarf in France.’ Chap. 2 in The Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014): 50.

205 Montserrat Guibernau, Belonging: Solidarity and Division in Modern Societies (Cambridge, UK; Maiden, USA: Polity Press, 2013), 93.

206 Romi S. Mukherjee, ‘Marianne voilée’, Histoire, monde et cultures religieuses 2, no. 34 (2015): 95.

!58 any case, the focus of political and media discourse was often based on the negative framing of the veiled Muslim woman – which often involved the covering of the faces, for which the burqa or niqab provided the most obvious tool.

The 2010 law prohibiting ‘la dissimulation du visage dans l’espace public’ brought out a public information poster, as mentioned earlier. [Figure 18] On the poster, Marianne was featured so as to recall that ‘[l]a République se vit à visage découvert’ – indeed she is referenced in double measure.207 This image quite accurately represents how the ban on the voile intégral is centred upon the visibility of Marianne and her facial features rather than those of her body. Mukherjee (2015) underlines how, through this poster campaign, the French authorities emphasised the importance of the face for social interaction and projected the assumption that, ‘Marianne ne peut que guider le peuple sans voile et le peuple ne peut se rassembler autour d’une allégorie à visage découvert’208.

Visualisations of a veiled Marianne were frequent in the lead up to - and in the aftermath of - the burqa ban. This tendency mirrored the visualisations of a burkini-clad Marianne that occurred in the later burkini scandal. As supported by Guibernau (2013), this veiling practice occurred because of the emotional significance attributed to national symbols. He notes the power that symbols have ‘to prompt strong emotions’ which can thereby ‘trigger social action, including political mobilisation’.209 The appropriation of national symbols, such as Marianne, which are subsequently utilised to promote an emotional response from French citizens vis-à-vis immigration – which appears to be the case in the following examples – pertains to their emotional charge. For example, a 1991 cover of Le Figaro greatly parallels a 2013 cover of Valeurs Actuelles. [Figure 1] The cover juxtaposes a traditional Marianne who is accompanied by a veiled twin; whose mouth is covered. Similarly, the 2013 cover of Valeurs Actuelles depicts Marianne clad in a full-face veil with the headline that reads: ‘Naturalisés: L’invasion qu’on cache’. [Figure 2] The imagery of the second cover infers that

207 François Fillion, ‘Circulaire du 2 mars 2011 relative à la mise en oeuvre de la loi no 2010-1192 du 11 octobre 2010 interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l’espace public’, Journal Officiel de la République Française, March 3, 2011.

208 Romi S. Mukherjee, ‘Marianne voilée’, Histoire, monde et cultures religieuses 2, no. 34 (2015): 104.

209 Montserrat Guibernau, Belonging: Solidarity and Division in Modern Societies (Cambridge, UK; Maiden, USA: Polity Press, 2013), 93.

!59 the hiding of the face corresponds with the institutional, underground invasion of ‘Muslim’ immigrants in France. The positioning in the first cover – with the veiled Marianne positioned behind the traditionally- depicted Marianne – emphasises the submissive character of Muslim woman whilst stressing Western cultural superiority.

Interestingly, the French flag is involved at times in the practice of veiling Marianne. One such example can be founded in a 2014 article in Le Monde entitled, ‘À quelle laïcité se vouer en France?’.210 [Figure 20] The article depicts a young woman of North African origin wearing a French flag fashioned in the style of the hijab. Laïcité is often perceived as a tendentious reflection of the principles, value systems and national narratives upheld by French Republican authorities.211 Here, the image seeks to challenge the identitarian political stances that assume the impossibility of being both Muslim and French. The media’s imposition of the full-face veil upon females produces the most dramatic imagery. The dramatisation can be exaggerated by controversial headlines such as ‘Peur sur la France’ [Figure 21] or ‘Pacte avec le diable’ [Figure 22]; as seen in Valeurs Actuelles in 2015. These examples much greater dramatisation and use of menacing imagery, which reflects the violence associated with the burqa due to its foreign connections with the Afghani Taliban. The use of the symbol that is ‘chargée symboliquement d’une grande violence’ and associated with a foreign terrorist force appears appropriate for the type of discourse that seeks to underline the weakening or even failure of the French Republic in response to the growing ‘threat’ of multiculturalism and immigration. 212

In September 2015, following a racist scandal concerning a parliamentary member of Les Républicains, then-First Minister Manuel Valls of the Partis Socialiste sternly voiced that ‘Marianne n’a pas de race, elle n’a pas de couleur.’ In the same speech, he warns that ‘Quand on parle de race blanche […] quand on parle de dangers de millions d’immigrants […] on fracture le pays.’213 By doing so, Valls correlates issues of race explicitly with issues

210 Stéphanie, Le Bars, ‘À quelle laïcité se vouer en France?, Le Monde, January 9, 2014.

211 See Eilidh McCann, ‘Baby Loup: An Exceptional Case? An Analysis of the Nature of Laïcité in Contemporary France’ (Bachelor diss., University College Cork, 2015), 27.

212 Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez,‘La burqa, la femme et l’Etat: Réflexions sur un Débat Actuel’, Raison-Publique - arts- politique - société, May 12, 2010.

213 Arthur Berdah, ‘ “Marianne n'a pas de race, pas de couleur”, lance Valls à Morano’, Le Figaro, September 30, 2015.

!60 concerning immigration. In this sense, one cannot address one of these issues without addressing the other. The following sections will more explicitly address the issue of race and ethnicity, specifically in regards to visual representation of the Republic and/or nation.

IV.iii Racialisation of Marianne Browyn Winter (2009) claimed that Marianne ‘made it’ when she was placed upon the national logo of the Lionel Jospin-lead government which depicted the French national motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. Winter notes that Marianne ‘became the white in the middle of the new blue-white-red ‘flag’ logo’.214 [Figure 3] At first, this may appear as a valid yet simplistic interpretation. However, following Winter’s line of thought, the act of ‘becoming white’ carries a considerable racial underlining. Winter’s interpretation accurately acknowledges the racial profiling of Marianne and appreciates complexity of what the logo stands for. In turn, this hypothesis denies the argument which views Marianne as simply an allegorical figure occupying a certain colour of a national flag. In any case, the fact that Marianne has been integrated into the government logo should not be taken lightly – especially the fact that she is depicted all white. Her whiteness should be considered in light of the controversy that emerged with the use of a Caucasian, ‘Marianne-style’ figure which featured in a 2010 governmental publicity advertisement. The figure wore a white Phrygian cap rather than a red one – as is traditional. Besides the feminist reactions to the campaign the controversy also emanated due to the historical significance of the Phrygian cap as well as the colour white, a colour associated with the bygone French monarchy.215

One could argue that the white block exists as the only realistic colouring of a human being given the colours of the French flag. The artist was evidently obligated to place Marianne in the white block. However throughout history Marianne has been depicted in multiple colours, including the other colours of the French flag. [Figure 23] This development therefore suggests that the logo – and the decision by the government to integrate a ‘white’ Marianne – was not with the aim of producing an image that reflected reality. The argument that Marianne should be ‘human’ in her appearance (and thereby white in this instance) is equally

214 Browyn Winter, ‘Marianne goes Multicultural: Ni putes ni soumises and the Republicanisation of Ethnic Minority Women in France’, French History and Civilisation 2, (2009): 232.

215 Elise Barthet, ‘Marianne enceinte, une pub polémique’, Le Monde, February 19, 2010.

!61 porous due to the extent to which representations of Marianne have changed and proliferated over time. This argument could be supported by comparing Marianne with another infamous heroine of the French Republic: Joan of Arc. The legend of Jeanne d’Arc has evolved from the experience of a French woman; therefore, it could be argued, her figuration would need to reflect the historical figure. By contrast, Marianne – as an anonymous reflection of the Republican value system – needs not be a true reflection of a historical figure.216

In light of this exploration of the actions of the French government and the establishment of their new logo, it is perhaps likely that the authorities knowingly choose to situate Marianne within the white section of the flag-logo. This argument can be further supported by an array of caricatures and representations which depict Marianne as white. Furthermore, the controversies that emerge when Marianne is represented as non-white, as will be demonstrated in the following section, equally demonstrate how Marianne is recognised as Caucasian.

IV.iii.a. Ethnicisation of Marianne The controversy of Frémainville, situated in the Val D’Oise region north of Paris, emerged following the disruption to the raising of a sculpture of Marianne with ‘d’inspiration africaine’ in the town hall. [Figure 24] Frémainville was the first town hall to have a Marianne in this style. The statue was commissioned in 1999, following a commemoration of the end of slavery as well as the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, the statue did not maintain its centrality following the change of municipal officials. The newly appointed mayor voiced opposition and replaced the bust with ‘une statue d'inspiration plus traditionnelle’ 217 – or ‘classique’ as Le Parisien put it. The French newspaper also records that Bobigny, in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, also dared to change the colour of Marianne’s skin in 2013. [Figure 25]

In these cases, Marianne is depicted in a distinctly non-European style which, arguably, attributes to her exoticism or ‘otherness’. Remarkably, the Bobigny statue, situated in a

216 Timothy Baycroft, Inventing the Nation (London: Hodder Education, 2008), 210.

217 Akhillé Aercke, ‘Val d'Oise : la justice saisie après le retrait d'une Marianne noire dans une mairie’, Le Figaro: Scan Politique, January 29, 2015.

!62 ‘multicultural’ ceremony room, is depicted with four eyes. By marking the statue with four eyes the artist, Hervé Di Rosa, consolidated Marianne’s Otherness and, in turn, dehumanised the non-white Marianne. The representation of non-white Marianne tends to emphasise her Otherness rather than striving to situate the statue within the larger body of work that seeks to personify the French Republic. It has also been suggested that the innovative representation of Marianne reflects a deliberate racial undercurrent on the part of both governmental authorities and the private sphere. It appears that white interpretations of Marianne are perceived as being non-threatening because they embody the traditional body of work which represents the classical style. On the other hand, the black Marianne is depicted as ‘humoristique’ whilst representing the ‘Other’; ‘[e]lle représentait certes quelque chose, mais pas la République’.218

The debate surrounding the ‘ethnicisation’ of Marianne remains prominent in national identity discourse. The Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires voice their continued commitment to their campaign which advocates for Marianne with ‘les traits d’une femme issue de la diversité' .219 The issue remains complex as the historian, Bernard Richard reduces the issue to a problem of numbers: ‘Avec 36.000 communes, on pourrait avoir 36.000 Marianne différentes.’.220 Indeed, the localisation of these atypical Mariannes is highly poignant. Second generation immigrants must request their french nationality at the town hall: their ‘Frenchness’ is judged as idealised 'white' Mariannes surround them therefore, from an immigrant perspective, the town hall constitutes the ‘lieu principal de visibilité’ for Marianne. 221 Once again, the difficulty lies in the issue of amalgamating the two anonymous figures: the idealised symbol of Marianne and the veiled Muslim woman. This remains at the heart of the French national identity ‘puzzle’ and, most importantly, its ethnic and racial boundaries. [Figure 26]

218 Akhillé Aercke, ‘Val d'Oise : la justice saisie après le retrait d'une Marianne noire dans une mairie’, Le Figaro: Scan Politique, January 29, 2015.

219 Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires, ‘Le CRAN dénonce le Maire de Frémainville, qui a mis au placard la Marianne noire’, December 28, 2016. http://le-cran.fr/le-cran-denonce-le-maire-de-fremainville-qui-a-mis-au-placard-la- marianne-noire/

220 Blandine Le Cain, ‘Les emblèmes de la République : sacrés mais sans existence légale’, Le Figaro, August 4, 2014.

221 Maurice Agulhon, Les métamorphoses de Marianne, 117.

!63 V. Conclusion

V.i Veiling Marianne In 2016, then Prime Minister of the French Republic, Manuel Valls, declared that Marianne is free because her breasts are uncovered. Earlier that year, the President, François Holland, suggested that ‘la femme voilée d’aujourd’hui sera la Marianne de demain’.222 In response, Bruno Le Maire dismissed Hollandes’ comments and assured that ‘[h]ier comme demain, Marianne ne sera jamais voilée’.223 Marianne as representative of the French Republic and as demonstrative of a ‘secular regulatory ideal’224 is used as a central point of reference upon which all other matters of national interest – particularly regarding French national identity – are projected. The French female’s identity as a citoyenne is fully reliant on her achievement of ‘womanhood’ which is assessed on the basis of culturally specific perceptions of femininity. This paradigm shows how‘[g]ender difference, properly expressed, becomes an important index for all other differences’.225

The implementation of policies against veiling in the French Republic tied together the exposure of certain body parts to to the achievement of ‘womanhood'. 226 According to Dorlin (2010) the burka ban indicated that ‘[l]a nationalité ne se définit plus par un droit du sol, mais bien en référence à une communauté sexuelle imaginée.’227 France, as a sexually-imagined community, remains fixated on a certain version of female identity that is culturally-specific and, for the most part, visually demonstrative as Dorlin (2010) confirms, ‘on ne discute pas ici de l’effectivité de la libération des femmes et de l’égalité sexuelle en France, mais bien de leurs signifiants nationaux’.228

222 Jean-Baptiste de Montvalon, ‘Marianne voilée: le mauvais procès fait à François Hollande’, Le Monde, October 13, 2016.

223 Jean-Baptiste de Montvalon, ’Marianne voilée: le mauvais procès fait à François Hollande’, Le Monde, October 13, 2016.

224 Nadia Fadil, ‘Not/un-veiling as an ethical practice’, Feminist Review 98 (2011): 96.

225 Kirsten M. Yoder Wesselhoeft, ‘Gendered Secularity: The Feminine Individual in the 2010 Gerin Report’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 31, no. 3 (2011): 402.

226 Nadia Fadil, ‘Not/un-veiling as an ethical practice’, Feminist Review 98 (2011): 96.

227 Elsa Dorlin, ‘Le grand strip-tease: féminisme, nationalisme et burqa en France’ in Ruptures postcoloniales: Les nouveaux visages de la société française, eds. Nicolas Bancel et al. (Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2010): 437.

228 Elsa Dorlin, ‘Le grand strip-tease: féminisme, nationalisme et burqa en France’ in Ruptures postcoloniales: Les nouveaux visages de la société française, eds. Nicolas Bancel et al. (Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2010): 433.

!64 If one follows the discursive prompts that are voiced in both the political and public sphere, it appears that national identity can only be achieved through the visual achievement of French feminine female identity: ‘Frenchness’ is not attributed on the basis of nationality or cultural codes, such as the languages spoken, but rather on a restricted vision of who ‘looks French.’229 Subsequently, this essay has shown that the visualisation of national identity is tied to another culturally-specific and visually-based conceptualisation, race.

V.ii Engendered & Racialised Identity of the Nation

However much gender equality is voiced as a means of legitimising the prohibition of veiling, the veiling controversies are undercut by a phenomenon that is arguably dangerous. The Migration Policy Institute (2012) confirms that the ‘real’ threat against national cohesion in France is the ‘persistence of ethnic and racial discrimination, which targets Muslims more than ever.’230 Indeed, the veiling history may infer the targeting of Muslim communities in France but above all, its main focus is the veiled Muslim woman, who constitutes the most obvious visual ‘other’ categorisation. Visible otherness ‘crystallise[s] the tensions surrounding the definition of national identity’231 in France which is clearly supported by Simon (2011) who notes how immigrants from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa note ‘substantial mismatch between their feeling French and the perception of their otherness.’232 Both female and national visual perceptions of identity are strongly associated with the French Republic therefore representations of the French Republic, and subsequently of national identity, are bound to evoke strong emotions and controversy. In this sense, national

229 Patrick Simon, French National Identity and Integration: Who belongs to the National community? (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2012), 13. Paper commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration for its seventh plenary meeting, Berlin, Germany, November 2011.

230 Patrick Simon, French National Identity and Integration: Who belongs to the National community? (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2012), 16. Paper commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration for its seventh plenary meeting, Berlin, Germany, November 2011.

231 Patrick Simon, French National Identity and Integration: Who belongs to the National community? (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2012), 14. Paper commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration for its seventh plenary meeting, Berlin, Germany, November 2011.

232 Patrick Simon, French National Identity and Integration: Who belongs to the National community? (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2012), 14. Paper commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration for its seventh plenary meeting, Berlin, Germany, November 2011.

!65 symbols should be offered as tools for national identity negotiation: How else can this feeling of otherness be overcome if not from the visualisation of the French Republic itself?

This essay has shown that veiled Muslim women are at the crossroads of engendered and racialised presumptions of Frenchness, and are penalised in political and public discourse. Veiling fashions are homogenised in a ‘singular discursive frame’233 and, in turn, so are the woman that wear them. The imposition of the allegorical figure of Marianne continues to actively promote the engendered and racialised visual parameters of French national identity.

As opposed to the process of visual homogenisation of the veiled Muslim female population, this essay demonstrates that due to the juxtaposition of the ‘real’ citizenry with the idealised, a process of hierarchical classification thus occurs; ‘…les assignations catégorielles sexuées et ethnicisées, opérées à partir d’une distinction religieuse, sont devenues autant de sources d’inégalités de traitement dans l’espace public et de qualifications de ‘déviances’ par rapport aux normes républicaines du comportement citoyen.’234 It has been shown that Marianne is consistently promoted as the idealised citoyenne whilst the veiled Muslim woman is denied true belonging to the French ‘imagined community’.

This study has constituted an exploration of the visual and discursive depiction of French national identity that positions the female form as its nucleus. Indeed, the study raises a number of questions including; how can the future citizens of the French Republic encourage a greater identification with their ‘imagined community’ if these imaginations do not visually match the reality? In the future of the French Republic, is it possible to have a veiled Marianne and what would this mean for France? In any case, we have still to await a veiled or, indeed, a non-white Marianne. Marianne remains ‘une poupée blonde et rose’.235

233 Myra Macdonald, ‘Muslim Women and the Veil’, Feminist Media Studies 6, no. 1 (2006): 8.

234 Valérie Amiraux, ‘De l’Empire à la République: l’ “islam de France” ’ in Ruptures postcoloniales: Les nouveaux visages de la société française, eds. Nicolas Bancel et al. (Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2010): 380.

235 Maurice Agulhon, Les Métamorphoses de Marianne. L’imagerie et la symbolique républicaines de 1914 à nos jours (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), 203.

!66 Appendix

!67 Figure 1: Cover Issue of Le Figaro, ’Immigration ou Invasion’, September 21, 1991. [Source: Romi S. Mukherjee, ‘Marianne voilée’, Histoire, monde et cultures religieuses 2, no. 31 (2015): 88. Accessed October 2016. DOI 10.3917/hmc.034.0083.]

!68 Figure 2: Cover Issue of Valeurs Actuelles, ‘Naturalisés: L’invasion qu’on cache’, October 2 2013. [Source: ‘Marianne voilée le directeur de Valeurs Actuelles condamne’, Le Monde, February 3, 2015. http:// abonnes.lemonde.fr/actualite-medias/article/2015/02/03/ marianne-voilee-le-directeur-de-valeurs-actuelles- condamne_4568964_3236.html]

!69 Figure 3: Identifier for governmental communication in France, ‘La Marianne’. [Source: Charte Graphique de la Communication Gouvernementale, Actions de Communication: Services d’Information Gouvernement, October 25 2004. http://ffdanse.fr/ publish/logos/Charte__communication_gouvernementale.pdf.]

!70 La loi n° 2010-1192 du 11 octobre 2010 interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l’espace public La République se vit à visage découvert Article 1er Nul ne peut, dans l’espace public, porter une tenue destinée à dissimuler son visage. dans tous les lieux publics : voies publiques, transports Article 2 en commun, commerces et centres commerciaux, I. Pour l’application de l’article 1er, l’espace public est constitué des voies publiques ainsi établissements scolaires, bureaux de poste, hôpitaux, que des lieux ouverts au public ou affectés à un service public. II. L’interdiction prévue à l’article 1er ne s’applique pas si la tenue est prescrite tribunaux, administrations… ou autorisée par des dispositions législatives ou réglementaires, si elle est justifiée par des raisons de santé ou des motifs professionnels, ou si elle s’inscrit dans le cadre de pratiques sportives, de fêtes ou de manifestations artistiques ou traditionnelles. Article 3 La méconnaissance de l’interdiction édictée à l’article 1er est punie de l’amende prévue pour les contraventions de la deuxième classe. L’obligation d’accomplir le stage de citoyenneté mentionné au 8 de l’article 131-16 du code pénal peut être prononcée en même temps ou à la place de la peine d’amende. Article 4 Le fait pour toute personne d’imposer à une ou plusieurs autres personnes de dissimuler leur visage par menace, violence, contrainte, abus d’autorité ou abus de pouvoir, en raison de leur sexe, est puni d’un an d’emprisonnement et de 30 000 € d’amende. Lorsque le fait est commis au préjudice d’un mineur, les peines sont portées à deux ans d’emprisonnement et à 60 000 € d’amende. Article 5 Les articles 1er à 3 entrent en vigueur à l’expiration d’un délai de six mois à compter de la promulgation de la présente loi.

Article 6 La présente loi s’applique sur l’ensemble du territoire de la République. Article 7 Le Gouvernement remet au Parlement un rapport sur l’application de la présente loi

dix-huit mois après sa promulgation. Ce rapport dresse un bilan de la mise en œuvre de la - Collections La Documentation française Sculpteur : G.L.Saupique. - Crédit photo : ECPAD présente loi, des mesures d’accompagnement élaborées par les pouvoirs publics et des difficultés rencontrées.

Nul ne peut, dans l’espace public, Pour plus d’informations, un site internet est à votre disposition : “ porter une tenue destinée www.visage-decouvert.gouv.fr à dissimuler son visage.”

Loi du 11 octobre 2010 (entrée en vigueur le 11 avril 2011)

PourPour plus plus d’informations d’informations, : un dépliant et un site internet sont à votre disposition : unwww.visage-decouvert.gouv.fr site internet est à votre disposition : www.visage-decouvert.gouv.fr

Figure 4: Plaquette Explicative on ruling on face coverings. implemented from April 11, 2011. [Source: ’La République se vit à visage découvert’, Portail du Gouvernement. Last modified November 14, 2014. https://lc.ambafrance.org/La-Republique-se-vit-a-visage, 646.]

!71 Figure 5: Eugene Délacroix, Le 28 Juillet. La Liberté guidant le peuple, July 28, 1830 (Photo credited to Phillippe Fuzeau; Musée de Louvre RMN). [Source: Malika Bouabdellah Dorbani, ‘Le 28 Juillet : La Liberté guidant le peuple.’, Musée de Louvre. http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/ july-28-liberty-leading-people.]

!72 Figure 6: One of fourteen photographs displayed on the Palais Bourbon. Mariannes d’aujourd’hui, Hommage des femmes des cités à la République. [Source: ‘L’Assemblée nationale, ultime étape de la Marche des femmes des quartiers contre les ghettos et pour l’égalité’, Assemblée Nationale, July 12, 2003. http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/ evenements/mariannes.asp.]

!73 Figure 7: Brigitte Bardot as Marianne (Sculpture by Alain Aslan). [Source: Blandine Le Cain, ‘Les emblèmes de la République : sacrés mais sans existence légale’, Le Figaro, August 4, 2014. http://premium.lefigaro.fr/ politique/ 2014/08/04/01002-20140804AR TFIG00002-les-emblemes-de-la- republique-sacres-mais-sans- existence-legale.php.]

!74 Figure 8: ‘FEMEN demonstration against Islam oppression in Paris on March 31st 2012’ (Photo credited to FEMEN official blog). [Source: Marine Gheno, ‘The FEMENist Connection: Ruptures and Agency in FEMEN France’, Multilingual Discourses 2, no. 1-2 (2015): 64. Accessed April 2017. https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/multilingualdiscourses/index.php/ multilingualdiscourses/article/view/24836/18359.]

!75 Figure 9: ‘Le nouveau visage de Marianne sur les timbres d’usage courant’ (Design by Author). [Source: Olivier Ciappa, ‘Le nouveau timbre Marianne : autopsie d'une fausse polémique’, Le Monde, July 19, 2013. http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2013/07/19/le-nouveau-timbre- marianne-autopsie-d-une-fausse-polemique_3450353_3232.html? xtmc=marianne_symbole&xtcr=3.]

!76 Figure 10: Cover Issue of Valeurs Actuelles, ‘Soumission: Enquête sur cette islam politique qui défie la France’. [Source: ‘No. 4162’, Valeurs Actuelles: Hors-Series, September 1, 2016. http://abo.valeursactuelles.com/ anciens-numeros/valeurs-actuelles-n-4162.html.]

!77 Figure 11: ‘J’ai tellement honte’, Twitter, August 23, 2016 (Photos credited to Caroline de Haas). [Source: Eugénie Bastié, ‘Les féministes françaises divisées sur la question du burkini, Le Figaro, August 25, 2016. http:// www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/ 2016/08/25/01016-20160825ARTFIG00145-les-feministes- francaises-divisees-sur-la-question-du-burkini.php.]

!78 Figure 12: Commission President, Bernard Stasi and General Rapporteur, Rémy Schwartz interviewing Fatia (Photo credited to Mehdi Fedouach/AFP). [Source: ‘Le Rapport de la Commission Stasi sur la Laïcité’, Le Monde, December 12, 2003. http://medias.lemonde.fr/medias/pdf_obj/ rapport_stasi_111203.pdf.]

!79 Figure 13: ‘Une militante de Femen, une organisation féministe qui lutte contre la corruption, la prostitution et la censure politique’ (Photo credited to REUTERS / VLADIMIR SINDEYEV). [Source: Sara Salem, ‘Les Femen, un féminisme de type néocolonial’, Le Monde, June 13, 2013. http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2013/06/11/les-femen-un-feminisme- de-type-neocolonial_3428285_3232.html?xtmc=femen&xtcr=44.]

!80 Figure 14: ‘Le dessinateur LECTRR met en scène une Marianne déshabillée par des policiers sur le sable chaud. À ses pieds, une femme en burkini rose’, August 25, 2016 (Illustration by LECTRR). [Source: Lucile Quillet, ‘Burkini : la polémique se fait ‘cartooner’ ’, Le Figaro: Madame, August 26, 2016. http://madame.lefigaro.fr/societe/burkini-quand-la-polemique-se-fait- cartooner-250816-115992#diaporama-1097020_1.]

!81 Figure 15: A woman in a burkini on Catalans beach, Marseille, August 16, 2016 (Photo credited to France Keyser/MYOP). [Source: François-Xavier Bourmaud, ‘La gauche se divise sur le burkini’, Le Figaro, August 24, 2016. http://premium.lefigaro.fr/ politique/2016/08/24/01002-20160824ARTFIG00269-la-gauche-se- divise-sur-le-burkini.php.]

!82 Figure 16: ‘Ce qui est interdit, c'est le trouble à l'ordre public ou l'incitation à la haine», explique Luc Ferry’ (Photos credited to RYAD KRAMDI/AFP). [Source: Luc Ferry, ‘Luc Ferry : Burkini, et puis quoi encore?, Le Monde, A u g u s t 2 4 , 2 0 1 6 . http://premium.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/ 2016/08/24/31003-20160824ARTFIG00165-luc-ferry-burkini-et-puis-quoi- encore.php.]

!83 Figure 17: Woman in burkini plays with children on French beach. (Photo credited to FADEL SENNA/AFP) [Source: Mathieu Bock-Côté,‘Burkini : derrière la laïcité, la nation’, Le Figaro, August 18, 2016. http://premium.lefigaro.fr/vox/politique/ 2016/08/18/31001-20160818ARTFIG00185-condamner-le-burkini- pour-sauver-la-nation.php.]

!84 Figure 18: Publicity poster, ‘La France investit dans son avenir’, Communications du Gouvernement, February 17, 2010 (Poster by Thierry Saussez). [Source: Elise Barthet, ‘Marianne enceinte, une pub polémique’, Le Monde, February 19, 2010, http:// abonnes.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2010/02/18/ marianne-enceinte-pour-promouvoir-le-grand- emprunt-une-pub-polemique_1307755_3224.html]

!85 Figure 19: Front National Anti-Islam Poster used by Front National Youth of Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur, ‘Non à l’Islamisme. La jeunesse avec le Pen’, 2010. [Source: Claire Hancock, ‘Le corps féminin, enjeu géopolitique dans la France postcoloniale’, L’Espace Politique 13, (2011). Accessed May 2017. DOI: 10.4000/espacepolitique.1882..]

!86 Figure 20: ‘Manifestation, en avril 2011, contre la convention nationale sur “ l'islam et la laïcité” voulue par l'UMP. Ce débat divisera le parti.’ (Photo credited to AFP/IMAGEFORUM). [ Source: Stéphanie Le Bars, ‘À quelle laïcité se vouer en France?’ Le Monde, January 9, 2014. Accessed September 2014. http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/ 2014/01/09/a-quelle-laicite-se- vouer_4345602_3246.html.]

!87 Figure 21: ‘Peur sur la France. Islam: et si Houellbecq avait raison?’, Valeurs Actuelles, January 8, 2015. [Source: Leila Marchand et al., ‘Hollande, Sarkozy, immobilier, islam: explorez un an de couvertures d’hebdomadaires français’, Le Monde, May 11, 2015. http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/ 2015/05/11/hollande-sarkozy-immobilier-islam- explorez-un-an-de-couvertures-d-hebdomadaires- francais_4630966_4355770.html.]

!88 Figure 22: ‘Pacte avec le diable. Ces politiques complices de l’islamisme’, Valeurs Actuelles, March 5, 2015. [Source: Leila Marchand et al., ‘Hollande, Sarkozy, immobilier, islam: explorez un an de couvertures d’hebdomadaires français’, Le Monde, May 11, 2015. http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/ article/2015/05/11/hollande-sarkozy-immobilier- islam-explorez-un-an-de-couvertures-d- hebdomadaires-francais_4630966_4355770.html.]

!89 Figure 23: ‘Par le socialisme, vers la liberté’, 1945 (Poster by Paul Colin) and ‘Parlons Français’, 1934 (Poster by Paul Iribe). [Source: Maurice Agulhon and Pierre Bonte, Marianne: Les visages de la République (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), introduction.]

!90 Figure 24: ‘En 1999, le maire Maurice Maillet avait opté pour une Marianne d’inspiration africaine’ (Photo credited to Fabrice Cahena/AFP). [Source: Akhillé Aercke, ‘Val d'Oise : la justice saisie après le retrait d'une Marianne noire dans une mairie’, Le Figaro: Scan Politique, January 29, 2015, http://premium.lefigaro.fr/politique/le- scan/insolites/2015/01/27/25007-20150127ARTFIG00284-val-d-oise-la-mairie-abandonne-sa- marianne-noire.php.]

!91 Figure 25: ‘Founman, Cameroun; les bronziers et leur Marianne avant le départ pour la France’. [Source: Gérard Monnier and Évelyne Cohen, eds., La République et ses symboles: Un territoire de signes (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2013), 438.]

!92 Figure 26: Illustration alluding to the difficulties vis-à-vis assimilation policies in France (Illustration by RAPAPORT). [Source: Anne Chemin, ‘Intégration ou assimilation, une histoire de nuances’, Le Monde, November 15, 2016. http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/ 2016/11/11/integration-ou-assimilation-une-histoire-de- nuances_5029629_3232.html?xtmc=burqa_france&xtcr=10.]

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Dalibert, M. and Quemener, N., ‘Femen. La reconnaissance médiatique d’un féminisme aux seins nus’, Mots. Les Langages du politique 111, (2016): 83 - 102. Accessed April 2017. DOI : 10.4000/mots.22373.

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Selby, J. A., ‘Un/veiling Women’s Bodies: Secularism and Sexuality in Full-face Veil Prohibitions in France and Québec’, Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 43, no. 3 (2014): 439- 466. Accessed June 2017. DOI: 10.1177/0008429814526150.

Winter, B., ‘Marianne goes Multicultural: Ni putes ni soumises and the Republicanisation of Ethnic Minority Women in France’, French History and Civilisation 2, (2009): 228-240. Accessed October 2016. http://www.h-france.net/rude/rude%20volume%20ii/ Winter%20Final%20Version.pdf

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!99 Barthet, E., ‘Marianne enceinte, une pub polémique’, Le Monde, February 19, 2010, http:// abonnes.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2010/02/18/marianne-enceinte-pour-promouvoir-le-grand- emprunt-une-pub-polemique_1307755_3224.html.

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Berdah, A., ‘ “Marianne n'a pas de race, pas de couleur”, lance Valls à Morano.’ Le Figaro, September 30, 2015, http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/le-scan/citations/ 2015/09/30/25002-20150930ARTFIG00080-pays-de-race-blanche-nadine-morano-persiste- et-signe.php.

Benbassa, E., ‘Le voile, pas plus aliénant que la minijupe, par Esther Benbassa’, Libération, April 6, 2016, http://www.liberation.fr/debats/2016/04/05/le-voile-pas-plus-alienant-que-la- minijupe-par-esther-benbassa_1444176.

Blavignat, Y., and AFP Agence, ’Des photos de patrouilles «anti-burkini» à Nice suscitent la polémique’, Le Figaro, August 24, 2016, http://premium.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/ 2016/08/24/01016-20160824ARTFIG00279-des-photos-de-patrouilles-anti-burkini-a-nice- suscitent-la-polemique.php.

Bock-Côté, M., ‘Ce que révèle l'affaire du Burkini’, Le Figaro, August 9, 2016, http:// premium.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/2016/08/09/31003-20160809ARTFIG00129-ce-que-revele-l- affaire-du-burkini.php.

Bock-Côté, M., ‘Burkini : derrière la laïcité, la nation’, Le Figaro, August 18, 2016, http:// premium.lefigaro.fr/vox/politique/2016/08/18/31001-20160818ARTFIG00185-condamner- le-burkini-pour-sauver-la-nation.php.

Bourmaud, F., ‘La gauche se divise sur le burkini’, Le Figaro, August 24, 2016, http:// premium.lefigaro.fr/politique/2016/08/24/01002-20160824ARTFIG00269-la-gauche-se- divise-sur-le-burkini.php.

Cecere, Y., ‘Marianne et le voile : quand la droite fait dire à Hollande ce qu'il n'a pas dit’, Marianne, October 12, 2016, https://www.marianne.net/politique/marianne-et-le-voile- quand-la-droite-fait-dire-hollande-ce-qu-il-n-pas-dit.

!100 Chemin, A., ‘Intégration ou assimilation, une histoire de nuances’, Le Monde, November 15, 2016, http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2016/11/11/integration-ou-assimilation-une- histoire-de-nuances_5029629_3232.html?xtmc=burqa_france&xtcr=10.

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