Immediately out, immediately withdrawn. A campaign celebrating diversity and “freedom in the hijab”, launched last week by the Council of Europe, sparked a controversy in France, leading Tuesday, November 2 the organization, watchman of human rights on the continent, to withdraw it.
Launched last Thursday by the Council’s Program for Inclusion and the Fight Against Discrimination and co-financed by the European Union, this campaign featured portraits of several young women, veiled in only one half of the image. A message in English said in particular: “Beauty is in diversity as freedom is in hijab” (“beauty is in diversity as freedom is in the hijab”). At first relatively unnoticed, it ended up triggering a lively controversy, from the far right to the government through the PS.
“This European communication in favor of the Islamist veil is scandalous and indecent as millions of women courageously fight against this enslavement”, launched Marine Le Pen, candidate of the National Assembly for the presidential election.
This European communication in favor of the Islamist veil is scandalous and indecent as millions of women courageously fight against this enslavement, including in France.
It is when women remove the veil that they become free, not the other way around! https://t.co/Zvn1Z6GENC
– Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) November 2, 2021
On the right, the president of the Ile-de-France region and candidate for the LR nomination for the presidential election, Valérie Pécresse, also expressed her “stupor”, believing that the veil was not “not a symbol of freedom but of submission”.
Shock & amazement at this Council of Europe campaign: no, the veil is not a garment like any other, it is not a symbol of freedom but of submission. And Europe’s role is to support women around the world who are fighting for the right to withdraw it! https://t.co/s8ne1lIdH7
– Valérie Pécresse (@vpecresse) November 2, 2021
Socialist Senator Laurence Rossignol, for her part, ruled that “to say that freedom is in the hijab” came back to “promote it”. Within the government, the Secretary of State in charge of Youth, Sarah El Haïry, declared on LCI that France had “expresses its extremely strong disapproval, hence the withdrawal of this campaign from [mardi]“.
“These tweets have been removed and we are going to think about a better presentation of this project”, confirmed in a statement sent to AFP the Council of Europe, an organization based in Strasbourg.
They “were part of a joint project” of the Council and the European Union “against discrimination, the objective of which was to raise awareness of the need to respect diversity and inclusion and to combat all types of hate speech”, further justified the Council.