In the French republic, state schools were built to fight the grip of the Catholic church on the whole of French society. The thinking was that Darwin is better at explaining the origin of the human race than the Bible. To build a country of free citizens: knowledge first; belief only if you insist, and even then, only by yourself.
“If the hijab or burkini had anything to do with modesty or piety, the Islamic fundamentalists would have sought private beaches, not insisted on forcing themselves on the public. … If the hijab becomes an accepted public phenomenon, a modern society cannot teach its future generations that a woman’s dress is not an excuse for rape”. — Hala Arafa, writing in The Hill.
A French Muslim society that often seems to feel as if it still belongs to its country of origin, appears to have decided that the game of secularism and “living together” should be over. With veils, burkinis and guns, various Islamists groups seem to be trying to embed the same message: We remain Muslims first and have decided to pay no attention to the culture of countries in which we are living.
For many today, French secularism is an anti-human rights ideology, a kind of moral deformity close to racism.
How can a free country, they ask, even think of doing such a thing as trying to ban a veil or a burkini — the full body covering for women to wear on the beach? How, they ask, can the French Republic call itself free and remain free when many of its citizens would like to rob Muslim women, peacefully obeying their own religion, of the freedom to choose their own clothes?
The current radicalization in France is not like that of the recent migration of Muslims to other European countries. Muslims have been coming to France in large numbers since the French left Algeria in 1962. The French never made any distinction between the French of “Gaul” and the French of North Africa. The current radicalization is not of those who came then, but of the younger generation — of French Muslims. They were born in France, speak French, were schooled in France — but they are not at ease with the values of France.