To answer the question suggesting why “the Veil” was such a huge issue in France, we will need to answer the question based on three issues, which are: sexuality, universalism, and “the laïcité”.

The first issue to the contested veil will be the sexuality related to it. Traditionally in Islam, the wearing of “the Veil”, or hijab, or burka is to cover up Muslim women’s body. While this is mostly no longer true for women living in Europe, and most of them just choose to wear them due to personal/cultural interest (as we can see from the New York times post), the French did in fact develop an impression that the Veil is one of many ways of Islam to oppress to woman in their faith. This kind of “sexual oppression” in the eyes of modern French perspective is clearly unacceptable. To the French, the fact that the Muslim women in their country are actively wearing the veil not only means that they presented themselves as the subject of the Muslim man, they are constantly under the oppression of Muslim man. All of this goes against the equality ideal of France, where all citizens, no matter man or woman have equal rights as a human.

The second issue that caused the veil to become a contested issue will be French universalism. To the French, the wearing of the Veil is a clear sign of disintegration under the values of universalism where everyone should present themselves as “same”. By wearing the veil, the Muslim women are presenting themselves as a “different” element/group in the society, which is unacceptable. In French universalism, it is true that all citizens should be treated as equal, but there are also prerequisite that in order to be treated as same, you will also have to be presented as the same. This means that the Muslims shouldn’t be able to present themselves differently based on their religion. They should only dress like any other French citizen without any other distinction from any other culture other than French culture. According to “The politics of the Veil”, the French totally abhors the idea of multiculturalism in the US where legitimacy is granted to people with a different cultural identity. To the French, there shall only be one identity for its citizens, and that identity is “French”. No matter what sex you are or what religion you practice, you can only be identified as “French”, with the premise that in order for a nation to be stand united as one, there should only be one homogenous cultural identity. Otherwise, there is no way to unite a country as one, as there are people that will be seen as different and therefore treated in a different way.

The third issue that caused the veil to become a contested issue will be the “the laïcité”, or basically a French-style secularism where the state is defended from the influence of religion (Unlike American secularism which is the other way around). The wearing of the Veil in public places and especially in schools are seen as a religious influence on the state, which is deem to be a violation of its constitution. Adding this to the fact that in an age while radical Islam movement is vibrant. The fight to ban the wearing of the Veil is seen to be a battle to defend the French way of life by rejecting any suspected Islam-related culture. Even if they were very much insufficient, like the example in Belgium, where there are only 50-100 people in 1 million Muslim populations that wear the burka, yet they still tried to ban it and made a huge deal about it.