One of the most interesting examples in recent years of a confrontation between secular and religious values occurred in France in the so-called ‘affair of the headscarf’. The affair can be traced back to events in 1989, which were followed by a further series of events during the 1990s. It started when a public school in Creil, a town in northern France, expelled three Muslim schoolgirls for refusing to remove the Islamic headscarves they wore to school. The expulsions were widely reported in French and international media and were followed by further expulsions of other Muslim schoolgirls in towns and cities across the country, accompanied by growing community protests.

The affair was controversial for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it revolved around the headscarf, an item of clothing that has historically had strong and sometimes conflicting political, religious, cultural and social connotations. During the events of the affair, the headscarf sent a range of messages that were ‘heavy with symbolism’, a symbolism which could be powerful, complex and indeed contradictory.

Another important set of reasons for the controversy surrounding the affair was that it struck a social, political and cultural ‘nerve’: the principal parties in the affair were Muslim schoolgirls, many of whom were the children of immigrant families already likely to experience high unemployment and religious or racial discrimination and to live in poor housing conditions.