Ostentation and republican civility: Notes from the French face-veiling debates

Abstract

France’s prohibition on public face-veiling was rationalised partly with reference to ‘fraternity’ – the third prong of the republican motto – as well as liberty and equality. Correspondingly, the voile intégral (‘full veil’) was widely described as transgressing republican standards of civility. Yet counterintuitively, republican civility was not understood, at least primarily, in terms of sociability or expressivity – but rather as requiring discretion, modesty and self-restraint. Therefore, the ‘full veil’ was not portrayed as an austere interpretation of religious modesty, but as precisely the opposite – as an ‘ostentatious’ defiance of republican civility. It was deemed anti-republican not because it was too modest – but rather because it was too flamboyant. In this light, I argue that the law should be understood neither as a coherent republican response to problems of domination in religious life nor, however, should it be seen purely as an expression of ethno-nationalist defensiveness. Rather, it can be understood as an attempt to legislate a republican habitus, that is a set of social mores – and bodily techniques – deemed appropriate in republican society. I use the French example to consider the political function of civility understood not in relation to speech constraints but rather in terms of bodily and linguistic technique.