Republican values and the burkini ban

In Britain, we proclaim the sanctity of “national values”. These are wonderful things, like tolerance and respect for the views of others. Sadly, they’re often espoused by people who want to ram them down the throats of minorities, whether they like it or not.

In the States, as far as I can see, the preference is for “American values” or “traditional values”. They tend to be much the same, and there seems to be just as little compunction about inflicting them on other people. Some championing them might, say, propose to ban an entire religious community from entering the country.

In France, the equivalent concept is “republican values”. In one of my favourite films, Casablanca, there’s a moment that grates each time I hear it (and I’ve watched the film a lot). It’s when the character Yvonne, tearful after singing the Marseillaise, cries out, “Vive la France! Vive la démocracie!” That’s a splendidly American slogan artificially transferred to the mouth of a Frenchwoman. In reality, her words would have been, “Vive la France! Vive la République!”

The founding document for France’s valeurs républicaines was the Declaration of the Rights of Man, adopted as the Revolution was getting under way and before the country had even become a Republic.

Article 4 boldly declares:

Liberty consists of being able to do anything that does no one else any harm: in other words, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limit other than those that guarantee to other members of Society the enjoyment of those same rights. Those limits may only be established by Law.

The declaration isn’t a religious document. It makes no reference to God or to any Church. But it isn’t anti-religious either. So article 10 asserts:

None may be disturbed for their opinions, including religious ones, as long as their expression does not disturb public order as established by Law.

France is currently gripped by a debate over whether the burkini, the whole-body covering swimsuit favoured by a tiny minority of Muslim women, can legitimately be banned from French beaches. Those who favour the ban include the former and likely-to-be future President, Nicolas Sarkozy, the current Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, and naturally the leader of the far-right Front National and presidential contender, Marine le Pen.

A Muslim woman obliged to remove a long-sleeved top on a beach
Not so nice of the Nice police

They all see the ban as a necessary precaution to protect republican values from the threat posed by Muslim extremism. They are all the more urgent in their call for the ban as a response to the terrorism of recent months. This despite the fact that, to my knowledge, not a single act of terrorism has ever been carried out by a woman in a burkini.

It’s not obvious, on the other hand, how they reconcile it with the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

First of all, let’s dispose of the simplest objection: ‘Man’ in this context means ‘mankind’. The rights apply as fully to women as to men.

Is the ban consistent with article 10? Is the wearing of the burkini likely to lead to a disturbance of the peace as foreseen by law? There have certainly been nasty scenes of public disorder over the wearing of Muslim garb, but generally in the form of abuse of the Muslims. “Go home” people have shouted, at women who in many cases were already at home, being French. The women were the victims of the disorder, not its instigators. Describing their actions as a breach of the peace seems like turning rape victims into criminals.

As for article 4, what could be clearer? You have the right to do whatever you like as long as your action doesn’t limit anyone else’s rights. How does the wearing of a burkini affect anyone else’s liberty? It doesn’t stop other people using the beach. It doesn’t stop them wearing revealing clothes. It doesn’t even stop them thinking the burkini inappropriate beachwear. It limits no one else’s rights.

Far from upholding republican values, the burkini ban seems to trample on the very principles they enshrine.

The truth is that the ban has nothing to do with republican values. It’s about people who have been frightened by an enemy who reaches into our midst and kills at random. A hidden enemy against whom we can’t hit back. Fear and frustration have brought to the surface a tendency latent in us all: racism is on the rise again. Muslims today must feel like Jews did when anti-Semitism was rampant but the holocaust hadn’t yet got going: they must be worried to go out, they must be worried to travel, they must feel that they can expect no protection from state.

We’ve been her before and we know where it leads. We need to stop it now before it descends to the next stage.

The signs aren’t good. Sarkozy is a significant political figure. In Britain, Nigel Farage campaigned against the EU with a poster declaring the country to be at breaking point, against a photograph of Syrians queueing to enter Europe. In the States Donald Trump is Farage’s pal, and he’s called for a wall against Mexicans and a ban on Muslim entering. This is the establishment giving racism a respectable face.

There’s hope yet, though. The Cour Constitutionnel in France has ruled the ban illegal, which suggests that some in France remain truly committed to republican values. However, Sarkozy had already said that if the court made that choice, he would campaign for a change in the constitution. The court's resistance was edifying but may not last long.

More encouraging was hearing Angela Merkel speaking to German TV.

“If I have to apologise for showing a friendly face [to people from other nations],” she said, “then this is not my country any more.”

Merkel’s no radical Lefty. She’s the Christian Democrat leader of Europe’s most powerful nation. If such voices are still speaking out, and can still be heard, then hope isn’t wholly lost. We just need to join our voices with theirs.

In defence of republican values. Or American values. Or traditional values. Or national values.

In fact, in defence of decent values anywhere.

Seeing off the far right: France was just a start. And we need to stand up for the EU

What a relief to see the French Front National, which came so close to an electoral breakthrough last week, trounced again. It led the field in six of France’s twelve metropolitan regions in the first round of elections on 6 December; it was poised to win control of at least two of them. But then voters closed ranks, choosing one of the other parties even if it wasn’t the one they favoured, to keep the Front out of power.

A relief, but only for a brief reprieve. The FN took a record number of votes. Over 1 in 4 voters chose them. Its strength continues to increase, as it has over the last twenty years. 

The lesson is that we have still to find an effective argument against the far right. One that will actually attract votes, instead of simply providing a way to block one party by voting for another we like only a little less.

Seven French regions for the Centre Right
Five for the Socialists
No room for the Front National

The French picture is particularly telling: François Hollande, the current president, is a member of the Socialist Party but is straight out of the same mould as many right wing leaders – he’s an “Enarque”, a graduate of the prestigious Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) which trains leading civil servants. Presidents Jacques Chirac and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing were Enarques too. It seems that Nicolas Sarkozy, former and possibly future President, attended the equally prestigious “Sciences Po” political science school, though his poor English prevented him graduating. Presidents who actually graduated from the school include Georges Pompidou, François Mitterand and Jacques Chirac. So of the seven Presidents of the fifth republic, from Charles de Gaulle to François Hollande, three are Enarques, and four were at Sciences Po (Chirac straddles both). Only de Gaulle attended neither school, but then he was at Saint Cyr, the top military college, equivalent to West Point in the States or Sandhurst in Britain.

These institutions aren’t just prestigious, they’re exclusive. They train a self-serving elite distinct from the general population. It’s no wonder that there is an appetite among many for something different. If neither main party offers it, they may look for it in a toxic grouping of the far right such as the Front National.

Support for Trump in the States and UKIP in Britain reflect the same phenomenon.

It’s urgent to find an answer. Many are looking for one. Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian, for instance, suggested that we should “fight with fire.” He quoted Sunder Katwala of British Future, who criticised Labour’s previous leader Ed Miliband for trying to tell people:

…that what they were really concerned about when they talked about migration was jobs, housing and wages. “He couldn’t talk about the cultural bit,” about people’s fears at the pace of change in their towns and cities. Instead he left those fears “festering in the subconscious”, waiting to be addressed by Ukip.

I’m not quite sure what this implies. Should we go along with the fears UKIP stirs up? Should we back right wing calls for tougher limits on immigration? Should we demand such limits even though we know they can only be achieved if Britain leaves the European Union?

Or isn’t that just fighting xenophobia with more xenophobia?

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London and once more a Member of Parliament, gave us some more anti-EU rhetoric today. He wants the EU to limit freedom of movement.

There are three fundamental freedoms of movement guaranteed by the EU: of capital, of goods and of labour. None of them can be abandoned by a nation wishing to remain in the Union.

So far, I’ve heard no one call for limitations on the first two. They principally serve the owners of capital and producers of products.

The third directly benefits workers. In the US, anyone who finds an opportunity in another part of the country, however distant, can travel to take it up, with no need to establish new residence or employment rights.

The EU covers under half the surface area of the US. But it’s only thanks to the Union that workers within it enjoy similar rights. So giving up freedom of movement would mean losing a key right.

Nor is it the only right the EU protects. Nothing prevented UK employers imposing back-breaking hours of work on employees, until the EU’s working hours directive came into force. 

David Cameron is trying to obtain from the EU the right to deny in-work benefits for four years. The move’s aimed at immigrants, but would also affect young British workers (those with under four years of employment.) The EU has, so far, rejected that proposal.

Many British workers enjoy rights protected by the EU. On the other hand, freedom of movement also gives EU migrants the right to settle and work in Britain. Limiting those rights would accommodate the cultural resistance to change Freedland mentions. Is that supposed to be worth the price of leaving the EU? Fundamental rights to avoid cultural discomfort?

Seriously?

It surely makes more sense to marshal arguments against these views. Show, in fact, that the xenophobes have got it wrong. That way we really would find a way to answer the groundswell of support for the right. Which we certainly won’t do by going along with its prejudices.

The French FN, Donald Trump and British UKIP show how urgent that is.