Where are the roots of France's hatred of the hijab?

The French are obsessed with Muslim women. This is neither new nor hidden. This hatred of Muslim women is a centuries-old tradition, a pathological need to control Muslim women's bodies, a legacy that outlives empires and revolutions. At the same time, this hatred is hidden behind slogans of freedom, equality, fraternity, and secularism. But let's be frank: France's arguments for secularism and equality have never been convincing. On the contrary, its anti-hijab laws and rhetoric have produced the opposite result: protest and division, exposing the hypocrisy of a state that claims to protect freedom while controlling women's clothing.

Colonial past

To understand the current hatred, we need to go back to France's colonial past. The French sought not just to conquer, but to dominate every aspect of life. Nothing more clearly reflected this domination than the violent attitude towards the hijab. The French sought not to liberate Muslim women, but to break them, to separate them from their religious and cultural roots. They wanted to see women's bodies, to control them - and when they were denied, they reacted with anger and violence, typical of colonial thinking.

Let us turn our attention to their Algerian colony, for there are many lessons to be learned from it. The French wanted to conquer more than land - a national identity. They sought to subjugate and oppress. The French colonial troops held public ceremonies and forcibly stripped Algerian women of their veils. They humiliated them and forced them to take photos in revealing clothing, which they sent to France as trophies of their "civilizing mission."

This was a symbol of their conquest not only of territory but also of bodies. The occupying forces undoubtedly wanted to achieve some results by paying maximum psychological attention to the veil worn by Algerian women. In this way, in some places, women were "liberated" and symbolically removed their veils. But what kind of civilization is this? Undoubtedly, a civilization characterized by violence, oppression, and coercion. Interestingly, they leveled these very accusations at Islam and Muslims. The accusers themselves were found guilty, exposing their crude and backward worldview. The French troops did not expect such a response. Their attempt to "liberate" Algerian women met only with resistance. The more they tried to undress women, the more Algerian women wore their veils. Their categorical refusal to remove the veil was a sign of their rejection of their "superiority."

The French, then and even now, failed to understand that the problem was not the veil. The problem was, and remains, the colonial mindset. This trend did not end with Algeria - it merely changed form. It permeated from Algeria to the lands of Turkestan. Removing the veil was not an isolated act of personal aggression; it was part of a broader colonial strategy to humiliate and destroy Muslim women and Islam itself. The methods used by colonial powers to control Muslim women reveal a perverse movement that persists today.

The words of the famous political philosopher Fanon from 1952 still have their impact: "The European, faced with an Algerian woman, wants to see her. He reacts aggressively to this limitation of his perception. Hatred and aggression show their face here, too, at this very moment."

To this day, nothing has changed. The French government still controls Muslim women's clothing with the same zeal and enthusiasm that its soldiers once did on the streets of Algeria. The temptation is still the same, it's just that the methods have changed.

In 2004, they banned the hijab in public schools. In 2007, they banned the hijab in public service. In 2010, they banned the veil in public places. In 2023, they banned the abaya in schools and the hijab for French athletes. Each time, their excuse is the same: secularism, equality, and freedom. But let's face it for what it really is: colonialist ideology disguised as progressive values.

What kind of equality excludes women from public life if they do not conform to the standards of appearance set by the state? Every few years, a new conflict emerges, rekindling the same debate. Whether it is schoolchildren being banned from classrooms, athletes being banned from competitions, or being attacked in the streets, these prohibitions marginalize Muslim women, but they also incite public hostility. The hijab represents a freedom that France has always and will never tolerate. Muslim women never needed to be liberated, but it was colonial minds that felt the need.

This is not limited to France. Hatred towards the hijab is found throughout the Western world, even in some Eastern countries. Muslim women are always portrayed as oppressed, humiliated, voiceless, and silent by their own gender and society. But the real oppression lies within Western society itself. They say they are for freedom. But if a woman chooses to cover herself, isn't that personal freedom? They have long presented themselves as the epitome of equality and freedom, but their rejection of the hijab only exposes the one-sidedness of their secular views. While it is undeniable that women are forced to wear the hijab in some parts of the world, the West's fatal flaw is that it assumes that all Muslim women are forced to wear the hijab, and that all Muslim women are oppressed and need to be "liberated."

It is not a problem that someone would come out and say that a Muslim woman's covering of her body is unusual, radical, or otherwise. It is not a problem that it is considered excessive. The problem is that these personal views are imposed on others, taking away their freedom to act according to their own choices. The real problem is not the hijab itself, but what it represents: the hijab is an alternative to the Western model of femininity. In rejecting the hijab, the West unwittingly exposes its own insecurities and internal prejudices. It claims to defend freedom while denying Muslim women the freedom to choose their own path.

So what is freedom if you can't do what you want?

I don't think this is freedom anymore...

As Fanon noted, “the hijab protects, it soothes, it separates.” To understand the importance of the hijab for the female body, one must have heard the confessions of Algerian women or analyzed the inner feelings of some women who have removed their hijab.

French colonial project

The myth of "civilization" was built on the idea of liberating Muslim women from their society, from their men, and even from their own choices. But as Fanon noted, "...the Algerian society so convincingly portrayed is not the society without women." Muslim women have always been masters of their own lives, even when the French tried to deprive them of their independence.

History resounds and sends its clear message: the hijab was never the problem. France will remain France. Until it faces this truth, its hatred and hostility towards Muslim women will continue to reveal its unquenchable oppression.