(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #228 - cr?che "Baby Wolf": Confusion and delusions in series (fr)

The decision of the Court of Cassation set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal of 
Versailles concerning the dismissal for serious misconduct Fatima Afif, educator of young 
children in the nursery Baby Wolf who worked veiled, triggered a new media and political 
campaign on the issue of the veil. ---- Decision of 19 March 2013 the Court of Cassation 
has triggered a wave of media commentary in which it is taken unanimously that the 
dismissal of the employee was broken, implying that the veil is from the "permitted" time 
in private companies would now be invaded by veiled women. ---- Tuesday, March 26, the 
Minister of the Interior, Manuel Valls, told the Assembly that he had seen in the decision 
of the Supreme Court a "challenge to secularism." Then, on France 2, Francois Hollande 
chained saying, Thursday, March 28: "The law must intervene ."

Debunking the truth

First recall that the Supreme Court did not annul the dismissal. She just broke a judgment 
of the Court of Appeal of Versailles not in accordance with law. She gave " the case and 
the parties in the state they were in before the judgment "and refers to the Court of 
Appeal of Paris.

The Supreme Court has even ruled on the "legality" of the veil by Fatima Afif. It simply 
found that the justification for termination, namely " clause of the rules, introducing a 
general restriction and imprecise [religious freedom] does not meet the requirements "of 
the Labour Code which governs" provisions providing for rights individuals and individual 
and collective freedoms restrictions which are not justified by the nature of the task and 
proportionate to the aim pursued . "

The Court of Cassation has just recalled that the obligation of neutrality that requires 
employee es utilities can not apply in general and absolute in a private company. Nothing 
says, moreover, that the Court of Appeal of Paris will break the termination, if the crib 
change his argument and demonstrates that the large dark scarf the employee hinders his 
ability to his professional duties by introducing a difference in treatment between 
children according to the beliefs of their family.

Do not confuse secularism and Islamophobia

Yet the media go wild and promise of new legislation against the Islamic headscarf. This 
campaign is dangerous! First, because it feeds back the anti-Muslim and Muslim which 
complicates any possibility of building solidarity between operated es crusade.

Then, because this will be an opportunity to introduce a gap in the legislation against 
discrimination, well beyond the religious question. Social regression for more!

Libertarian Alternative always denounce the hypocrisy of state and hypocrisies that 
politicians put in place supposedly secular political reality but racist, secularism 
serving only deposit a political stigma of part of the population. These controversies are 
a logic of repression and exclusion that is not ours. This does not prevent us also to 
denounce the trap women taken between contempt and Republican tradition, which imposes 
this symbol of domination. But that is another debate that is not even mentioned when 
talking about the Islamic veil.

Jacques Dubart (AL Agen)