openDemocracy Author -Valérie Amiraux

Valérie Amiraux obtained degrees in history (BA and MA at the Sorbonne) and in Arabic (both classical and Egyptian at INALCO); and then pursued a PhD in political science at l'Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (1992-1997). During this period, she began focusing her research on Muslim communities in Europe and the situation of Turkish-Islamic associations in Germany. Subsequent appointments as Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute (1997-1999) and as a Research Fellow and Scientific co-ordinator of the Mediterranean Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre of the EUI (1999-2000) allowed her to pursue more fully research activities related to Islam in Europe. Her present research interests (connected with her recent appointment as Research Fellow at CNRS-CURAPP) are the production of discourses on Islam in Western Europe (Great Britain, Italy, Germany, France) and the political and juridical regulation of religious pluralism in Europe.

Recent articles

Representing différence

'Dans les écoles, les collèges et les lycées publics, le port de signes ou tenues par lesquels les élèves manifestent ostensiblement une appartenance religieuse est interdit. Le règlement intérieur rappelle que la mise en oeuvre d'une procédure disciplinaire est précédée d'un dialogue avec l'élève'

Article 1 de la loi n° 2004-228 du 15 mars 2004, inséré dans le code de l’éducation.

In February 2004, French MPs voted 494 to 36 in favour of legislation banning ostentatious religious symbolism in schoolwear. Could anything have been worse – one might ask – than such a large consensus among the political parties to promote a law that, in much of its implementation and outcomes, generates exclusion from state schools (47 individuals since September 2004), accentuates gender inequality by being directed mostly at women, and exacerbates indirect discrimination (did it occur to no one to remember the Sikhs during the preparation of this law)? But let us ask: would there have been a better result had more women been sitting in the French Parliament when these decisions were taken?