Behind the Scarfed Law There is Fear

Alain Badiou, Lacan.com, 2004

1. A few likeable Republican women and men once put forward the idea that a bill banning scarves from the hair of schoolgirls had to be drafted. First, ban the scarf from school. Then, ban it from elsewhere and everywhere if possible. Did I hear "a law"? A Law! The President of the Republic was as limited a politician as he was unsinkable. Totalitarianly elected by 82 percent of voters, including all of the Socialists, i.e. those from whom a good number of the likeable Republican women and men used to be recruited, Chirac nodded his assent: a law, yes, a Law against a few thousand young girls who put the aforementioned scarf over their hair. Those hairless, mangy things! Muslims, moreover! This is how, once again, likewise to the surrender in Sedan, Pétain, the Algerian War, Mittérand's deceits and the villainous laws against workers without working papers, France has astonished the world. After the tragedies, the farce.