Muslim Voices in France Speak Out Against Veil, Citing Extremist Influence

They are a total of 101 "French of Muslim culture or faith, humanists, progressives and feminists", who have decided to have their say at the heart of this debate on the veil that continues to divide within French society, reports Valeurs actuelles.

At first, they make an observation: "Our country has been torn apart for thirty years over the wearing of the veil by certain French women of the Muslim faith. These women are becoming more and more numerous, so strong is the influence of extremist preachers."

And, he added: "The subject is therefore serious. Many things are said. But many of these things are false."

In reality, for these 101 Muslims, "it is high time that our compatriots know that the wearing of the veil is not unanimous, among ’the’ Muslims. It is not part of the cult, unlike the Ramadan fast or the five daily prayers. It is not a ’religious symbol’ since Islam condemns all material fetishism." And, he hammered that "Islam is lived in the heart, not on the head".

The authors of this column published in "Marianne" affirm that veiling women is a way of stigmatizing their presence in the public space, making them "citizens assigned to the scandalous identity of ’subordinates to the supposed desire of men", while during this time, "our beautiful country is fighting to move towards ever more equality between the sexes". Worse, "the wearing of the veil is the ostentatious sign of a retrograde, obscurantist and sexist understanding of the Koran," they write.

Furthermore, denouncing a "terrible neo-conservative wave", these 101 Muslims in France note that "Muslims want to freeze Islam in the paradigm of the 7th century, that of the Arabian desert, by grafting onto it the wearing of a veil, which is moreover non-existent in the Koran".