Social workers in les Bosquets have their work cut out for them: 7,000 people - the vast majority of which are ethnic minorities - live in often run-down buildings and the unemployment rate reached 25 percent in 2008. The area is so hard to reach that it becomes a sort of ghetto far removed [15 km] from the City of Lights and its sumptuous attractions. In January alone, the women of the association were contacted by 240 of les Bosquets' female residents.... These women who work to close the gap between France and its immigrant families are now present in most underprivileged neighbourhoods in the country. They also seem to interest some of the highest-level French authorities: last June, Jean-François Copé, the president of the ruling centre-right Union for a Popular Movement Party (UMP) in France's National Assembly, suggested sending social workers from these associations to talk to women who wear the head-to-toe Islamic headscarf, the 'burqa', and their husbands. The objective was to try "to understand how one could get to that point" and to explain to these couples the implications of a possible law banning the burqa in the public sphere, a proposition which has sparked much debate in France. Read more...
These women who work to close the gap between France and its immigrant families are now present in most underprivileged neighbourhoods in the country. They also seem to interest some of the highest-level French authorities: last June, Jean-François Copé, the president of the ruling centre-right Union for a Popular Movement Party (UMP) in France's National Assembly, suggested sending social workers from these associations to talk to women who wear the head-to-toe Islamic headscarf, the 'burqa', and their husbands. The objective was to try "to understand how one could get to that point" and to explain to these couples the implications of a possible law banning the burqa in the public sphere, a proposition which has sparked much debate in France.
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Ms Dati defends Sarkozy's "rainbow" government. "He wanted gender parity in his government, with women at responsibility roles, which never happened before, and also with different backgrounds, different social conditions, and also different ages as he is very young also," she says.
...pourtant intemporel. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
At the height of the controversy, everyone seemed to have an opinion about the law. More than sixty public personalities--including actresses Emmanuelle Béart and Isabelle Adjani, philosopher Élisabeth Badinter, former government ministers Corinne Lepage and Yvette Roudy, and activist Fadela Amara--appealed to Chirac in the pages of Elle magazine to pass a law banning the foulard. Few voices were heard in defense of both laïcité and Muslim girls' civil right to attend school. Among these were comic book artist Marjane Satrapi, who wrote in the Guardian that to forbid schoolgirls to wear the veil was as repressive as forcing them to wear it, and philosopher Pierre Tévanian, who argued that laïcité applied to institutions, not people. Read more....
Read more....
emphasis added to levity Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Scott's broad and exhaustive research makes for a bracing account of the debate.
Scott on Conversations with History, discussing her book, cited in Lalami's article, The Politics of the Veil:
Cat: "light of laïcité" -- alliteration
Picture Copé with a snout, small eyes and a corkscrew tail. Now picture Marianne exhorting Copé as she colors his lips bright red, with the caption: "Go forth to les Bosquets and bring them the good news of laïcité."
The march of civilizations is a series of defenses that man has put up against the dread of pure existence.
