> Predominantly Muslim immigrant communities constitute about 10% of the
> French population. If French leftists didn't think about them first
> and foremost, rather than Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., in
> relation to secularism, it would be odd.
As Chris Doss just said, it's Catholicism that the French left is mostly thinking of when it promotes secularism. The "headscarf law" also applies to yarmulkes and conspicuous Christian symbols.
>> Championing the rights of Muslims in North Africa against the
>> clash-of-civilizations rhetoric of the Right was
>> *the* defining experience of the postwar French left, like the civil
>> rights movement and Vietnam rolled into one.
>
>
>
> I don't think French leftists have done all that well in this respect:
> e.g..
>
> "Bien sûr, certaines jeunes filles affirment que cela représente leur
> choix personnel. Mais même si cela est vrai, ce choix contribue à
> l'oppression de celles qui voudraient résister et il est tout aussi
> inacceptable [Of course, certain girls affirm that hijab represents
> their personal choice. But even if that is true, their choice
> contributes to the oppression of those who would like to resist and it
> is just as unacceptable]" (Sophie Gargan, "Port du voile: une pression
> réactionnaire," Lutte Ouvrière 1833, 19 September 2003,
> <http://www.lutte-ouvriere-journal.org/article.php?LO=1833&ARTICLE=2>).
>
> That's not a very enlightened opinion if you ask me.
Well, that's just the point. To *you* it doesn't seem enlightened. I don't think I'm presuming too much when I say that you probably take that view in part because you're promoting a political strategy for the left to ally with religious Muslims, to view Mahmoud Ahmedinijad as "our man in Iran," etc. Leftists with other strategies and other priorities (and coming from other historical traditions) will see things differently.
20 years ago, it was rare for Muslim girls in France to wear headscarves to school. It's become more common as unemployment has risen and religiosity has spread. A lot of people who used to be secular have had identity crises and gone religious. Sometimes they've been men, who've then decided to force their sisters or daughters to wear hijabs - girls who had previously been under the impression that the goal was to assimilate and become French. Meanwhile, other Muslims never became religious and still others are new arrivals who were never secular in the first place. That's why French Muslims have different opinions on the issue - in polls they split roughly in half, with women being slightly in favor of the ban.
If you're a leftist and you want to ally with the conservative, religious segment of the Muslim community, you might well be against the ban. If not, you might be for it. (Or you might be for or against it for lots of different reasons. One of the Trotskyist parties was for the ban, while its youth wing was against it.) I'd note that Jean-Marie Le Pen was against the ban.
Seth