France’s 2004 law facially neutral in language targets the hijab specifically

Evidence

On March 15, 2004, the French parliament enacted law number 2004-228, which restricted the wearing of “ostentatious” religious symbols in public schools. While the law’s language was facially neutral, meaning it did not explicitly name Islam or the hijab itself, it sought to ban the wearing of headscarves, or hijabs, by Muslim girls and women. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 701

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ piece: a 21st-century state sumptuary law aimed at Muslim women’s dress, with imperial roots.
• XREF: Connects to the French republican laicite tradition and to Iftikhar on state Islamophobia. — connects to: France’s Hijab Ban inaugurated gendered Islamophobia that polices Muslim women’s bodies; French hijab debates framed secular schooling as protection against fundamentalism — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 241
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 701