海角大神

France has gone into another of its periodic conniptions about Muslim habits. The threat they pose 鈥� or don鈥檛 鈥� to national identity and national security has found a surprising new expression: a swimming costume.

The burkini, a two-piece swimsuit that covers the extra-modest Muslim woman from head to toe, has sparked an angry debate that even the prime minister has joined. It would seem, in the name of 鈥淟ibert茅, 脡galit茅, Fraternit茅,鈥� an ugly current of intolerance has emerged.

The row began when the right-wing mayor of Cannes, the seaside resort of film festival fame, banned the burkini from the city鈥檚 beaches and threatened to fine women found wearing one. A number of other mayors followed suit.

The burkini, said Thierry Migoule, head of services for the Cannes city government, is 鈥渁n ostentatious piece of clothing that makes reference to allegiance to terrorist movements that are waging war on us.鈥�

The Socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, did not go quite so far. But he interrupted his vacation to offer his support for the mayors, branding the new swimsuit 鈥渢he expression of a political project, a counter-society, based notably on the enslavement of women.鈥�

So what has happened to a woman鈥檚 right to 濒颈产别谤迟茅 of choice? It has become hostage to secularism, or 濒补颈肠颈迟茅 as the French call it, though they cannot agree on what it means.

尝补颈肠颈迟茅 is a founding value of the French republic, intended to guarantee the state鈥檚 neutrality in religious affairs. It is meant to ensure there is no such thing as a state religion, nor any favoritism, allowing everyone to practice their faith freely so long as public order is maintained. It was born of a lengthy battle between the state and the Roman Catholic Church at the end of the 19th century.

But as jihadist terrorists have struck repeatedly in France, and as social tensions have mounted, political leaders on both left and right have used the principle to constrain Muslims.

Veils are banned in schools and in all public institutions such as hospitals; the niqab, covering everything but a woman鈥檚 eyes, is illegal everywhere; a number of schools that used to offer Muslim (and Jewish) kids alternative choices when pork was on the canteen lunch menu have stopped doing so.

Now the burkini has raised hackles. 鈥淭he effect on society [of the burkini ban] is disastrous,鈥� worries Michel Tubiana, president of the Human Rights League, a century-old watchdog. 鈥淚t radicalizes both sides, it raises tensions and it encourages isolationism in the Muslim community.鈥�

It also plays into the hands of extremists, argues Yasser Louati, a civil liberties activist especially concerned by Islamophobia. 鈥淚SIS terror attacks are designed to have governments crack down on fundamental liberties,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey are looking to make it impossible for Muslims and non-Muslims to live peacefully together in the West.鈥�

So far, at least in France, they do not seem to be succeeding. A poll published in the daily Le Monde last weekend found that 63 percent of respondents felt that 鈥渨e should not lump together鈥� Muslims living peacefully in France and Islamist radicals.

And a survey last May by the National Consultative Human Rights Commission actually found that the general public鈥檚 level of tolerance had gone up by five points since the year before, which it said was 鈥渁stonishing, to say the least鈥� against the background of Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere.

But how robust this tendency is, the commission cautioned, is still unclear. The number of Islamophobe attacks 鈥� mainly against veiled women 鈥� rose more than threefold last year, it pointed out.

Meanwhile, hate speech has become 鈥渃ommonplace鈥� in France, according to a report in March by the Council of Europe鈥檚 human rights watchdog, which warned that 鈥渢he rejection of Muslims is fed by certain political leaders鈥� discourse.鈥�

This is not just a matter of Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party, comparing open-air Muslim street prayer sessions to the Nazi occupation. The Socialist Minister for Families, Women and Children, Laurence Rossignol, recently likened women who wear the veil to 鈥淣egroes who supported slavery,鈥� which did not endear her to the Muslim community.

The burkini makes many French people, not least feminists, uncomfortable. But the challenge of the debate it has provoked, says Jean Baub茅rot, a sociologist of secularism, is to choose between two options: 鈥渙n one side, to give the largest possible number of people the feeling that they belong to the community and to isolate the enemies of the republic; on the other 鈥� to come down hard on the slightest occasion that seems shocking.

鈥淥ne may be shocked by the veil or by the bikini,鈥� Dr. Baub茅rot told the daily Lib茅ration. 鈥淭here can and should be a debate, but that does not mean banning things. That is the principle of democracy: tolerating difference, accepting otherness.鈥�

In today鈥檚 France, Baub茅rot is hoeing a hard row.