All of them are facing stop signs of one kind or another in French society because they wear the head-covering veil or hijab. “I broke out in tears,” says one of them, recalling the day she was told she couldn’t accompany her small child on a school trip.
Muslim women’s rights activists say Islam and feminism are often viewed as an impossible combination in western countries. “Muslim feminists are denied existence here,” says one woman.
For generations France made little effort to include newcomers from its former colonies in North Africa, say critics. Now, two recent bans against religious veiling put French Muslim girls and women at the center of the country’s simmering immigration debate.
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