The Muslim Veil in France: Between Power and Silence, between Visibility and Invisibility

This paper will explore the contingency and fluidity of religious freedom in France and stress the existence of overlapping, competing and coexisting legal discourses in terms of national security and public order. In response to the Muslim veil, changing power structures, changing societal norms and new faces of injustice, established doctrines are reconsidered, reformulated and partly replaced by competing doctrines and hypotheses. Given the relative indeterminacy of law on the concept of secularism and French neutrality, it is no surprise that the problem of interpretation has always been one of the focal points of attention for legal practice and drafting