Data and Methods
In order to analyze how electoral contexts and processes shaped the demarcation of the boundaries of nationhood in France’s face veil debate, I conducted a detailed qualitative analysis of the 2009 Gerin commission and its surrounding debates. Primary data sources for this portion of the study include the Gerin commission’s 200-page report and the full 400-page transcripts of its deliberations, including presentations by all seventy-eight of its invited participants. I also spent the months of October 2012 and March, April, and October 2013 conducting interviews in Paris and Lyon, France. Of a total of twenty-nine interviews, nine were conducted with politicians who were members of the commission board (see table A.1), ten with individuals belonging to various organizations who appeared before the commission as participants (see table A.2), and ten with other individual actors who did not appear before the commission but played a key role in the surrounding public debate (see table A.3).
My methods for recruiting participants differed according to the type of interviewee in question. For Gerin commission members, I used email contact information provided on the French National Assembly’s official website. I then drew from the list of commission participants to identify relevant organizations, finding contact information for most of these online. These initial interviews then led me to discover other key actors, whom I contacted via referrals from prior interviewees. Because all participants are public figures – either public officials, political party members, interest group representatives, or well-known academics – and given the relatively small number of individuals prominently involved in the Gerin commission and surrounding debates, I did not guarantee anonymity to my interviewees. The Office of Research Ethics at the University of Toronto provided ethics approval for the project in May 2012.
Interviews with members of the Gerin commission (France)
Name |
Party affiliation |
André Gerin |
Parti communiste français (PCF) |
Jacques Myard |
Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP) |
Georges Mothron |
Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP) |
Nicole Améline |
Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP) |
Jean Glavany |
Parti socialiste (PS) |
Christian Bataille |
Parti socialiste (PS) |
Danièle Hoffman-Rispal |
Parti socialiste (PS) |
Sandrine Mazetier |
Parti socialiste (PS) |
François de Rugy |
Parti Vert |
Lasting 40–120 minutes, interviews were open-ended and touched on a wide range of questions. I began each conversation by asking the respondent to describe his or her personal role in the French face veil debate. Having established the basic facts of each participant’s involvement, I then asked them to describe the key actors, ideas, and institutions underpinning the 2010 law. In the case of politicians directly implicated in the process of passing this law, I inquired about the dynamics of contention in the National Assembly, about the sources of agreement and disagreement with their political foes, and about internal party dynamics during this period. When interviewing civil society actors, I asked about goals and strategies for gaining traction in the face veil debate, about their allies and opponents in the electoral field, and about the discourses that they deployed when engaging publicly with this issue.
Interview data for the French case was supplemented with evidence obtained through participant observation in lectures, conferences, and organizational meetings pertaining to the face veil ban and its surrounding debates. Lectures and conferences include: (1) a lecture by sociology professor Jean Baubérot entitled “La laïcité falsifiée” (Falsified Secularism) organized by Plateforme de Paris (Paris Platform) and delivered on 24 September 2012; (2) a one-day conference entitled “Laïcité et collectivités locales” (Secularism and local collectivities) attended by academics, legal experts, and public servants in Paris on 9 October 2012; (3) an academic seminar on Islamophobia hosted by Sciences Po in Paris on 3 April 2013; (4) a two-day academic conference on laïcité organized by the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (National Centre for Scientific Research, CNRS) in Paris on 11–12 April 2013; (5) a two-day academic conference entitled Enseignement laique de la morale et enseignement des faits religieux (Teaching Secular Morality and Religious History) organized by the Institut européen en sciences des religions (European Institute for the Scientific Study of Religions) in Paris on 18–19 October, 2013; and (6) a symposium entitled “La laïcité en actes” (Laïcité in action) organized by the Association de culture berbère (Berber Cultural Association, ACB) in Paris on 26 October 2013. In addition, I attended an event organized by the pro-laïcité feminist organization Regards de femmes (Women’s Outlooks) at a Paris café on 23 April 2013. It was attended by numerous feminist organization representatives and the author Jeanette Bougrab, a lawyer of Algerian background who supports the restriction of Islamic religious signs.
Interviews with participants in the Gerin commission (France)
Organization name |
Organization type |
Interviewee name |
Ligue du droit international des femmes (International League for Women’s Rights) |
Feminist |
Annie Sugier |
Regards de femmes (Women’s Outlooks) |
Feminist |
Michèle Vianès |
Collectif des féministes pour l’égalité (Collective of Feminists for Equality) |
Feminist |
Ismahane Chouder |
Égalité Laïcité Europe (Equality Secularism Europe) |
Feminist |
Martine Cerf |
Riposte Laique (Secular Answers) |
Secular |
Pascal Hilout |
Ligue des droits de l’homme (Human Rights League) |
Secular |
Jean-Pierre Dubois |
Fédération nationale de la libre pensée (National Federation for the Freedom of Thought) |
Secular |
Marc Blondel and Christian Eyschen |
Conseil d’État (Council of State) |
State/legal |
Remy Schwartz |
École Pratique des Hautes Études (Practical Institute for Higher Learning) |
Academic |
Jean Baubérot |
Other interviews (France)
Name |
Role/Occupation |
Alain Seksig |
Inspector general of national education |
Nicolas Cadène |
Socialist MP and secretary of the Observatoire de la laïcité (Observatory of Secularism) |
Patrick Weil |
Political Scientist, director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (National Centre for Scientific Research) |
Christine Delphy |
Feminist scholar |
Naima Bouteldja |
Author of 2011 Open Society report on veiled women in France |
Eric Thiers |
Advisor and division chief, Division du secrétariat de la Commission des lois constitutionnelles, de la legislation et de l’administration générale de la République (Division of the Secretariat of the Commission of Constitutional Laws, of Legislation, and of the General Administration of the Republic) |
Pierre Tévanian |
Member of feminist organization Une école pour tous et toutes (A School for All) |
Ndella Paye, Anissa Fathi, and Youssra H |
Members of feminist organization Mamans toutes égales (Mothers for Equality) |
In order to study the relationship between electoral contexts and processes and the production of Québécois nationhood in the context of the Charter of Values, I draw on primary evidence pertaining to party politicians’ and civil society actors’ involvement in the surrounding debate. To capture the role of politicians, I draw primarily from parliamentary debates, and the documents and press releases issued by the major opposition parties. I cover the eighteen parliamentary sessions in which the Charter of Values was debated between 25 September 2013 – when the first discussion of the Charter took place in parliament – and 20 February 2014 – the date of the last parliamentary session prior to the calling of an election on 5 March 2014. Press releases by the major opposition parties cover the period from 15 August 2013 to 7 April 2014, and include nine statements by the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ), eleven by the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), and thirteen by Québec solidaire (QS). I supplement this data with interviews I conducted with Nathalie Roy, the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) spokesperson in matters of immigration, secularism, integrity, and the status of women, and with Amir Khadir, co-president of Québec solidaire at the time (see table A.4).
To capture the influence of civil society actors in deliberations surrounding the Charter of Values, I turn to the parliamentary hearings organized by the Parti Québécois government to tap public responses to Bill 60, which would make the Charter into law. Between January and late February 2014, representatives of Quebec’s National Assembly heard the testimonies of sixty-nine individuals and organizations. Ten additional presentations scheduled for March 2014 were cancelled when the PQ government called a provincial election on 5 March 2014. In addition to the total seventy-nine briefs made public on the government website, I analyzed those of another six organizations known to play a key role in the Charter debate but whose briefs did not make it into the public record. These include briefs by the Quebec Bar Association; Indépendantistes pour une laïcité inclusive (Separatists for an Inclusive Secularism); the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission); the Association des juristes progressistes (Association of Progressive Jurists); the Fédération des femmes du Québec (Quebec Women’s Federation); and the Conseil du statut de la femme (Council for the Status of Women). I supplement this evidence with interviews I conducted with civil society actors participating in the public hearings and surrounding debates (see table A.5) and with four prominent members of the Bouchard-Taylor commission (see table A.6).
Interviews with politicians (Quebec)
Name |
Party affiliation |
Nathalie Roy |
Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) |
Amir Khadir |
Québec solidaire (QS) |
As in the French case, interviews consisted of open-ended questions and lasted 40–120 minutes. When interviewing politicians, I posed questions aimed at probing the dynamics of competition between and within political parties in the National Assembly, at identifying key sources of agreement and disagreement with competitors, and at gaining insight into the internal party mechanisms for deciding which positions to put forward with respect to the religious signs issue in general and the Charter of Values in particular. Exchanges with civil society actors were geared primarily to gaining a sense of the field of organizations involved in the Charter of Values debate, to probing the mandates and internal decision-making procedures of the specific organizations in question, and to identifying the main sources of agreement and discord between differently positioned actors. A final set of interviews, those conducted with members of the Bouchard-Taylor commission, was undertaken with the aim of understanding the mechanisms for reaching conclusions and generating recommendations with regard to religious accommodation in Quebec.
In my study of both the French and Québécois cases, I coded and analyzed field notes from events attended, as well as textual and interview data pertaining to the Gerin commission and the Charter of Values debate, through a multi-step iterative process. After noting which themes were most prevalent in a first open round of coding in Nvivo, I then grouped codes together into broader themes and conducted focused coding to understand (1) how the electoral context and established processes of party political contention shaped parties’ competition for issue ownership during the period surrounding France’s 2010 ban of face coverings and Quebec’s 2013 Charter of Values and (2) how the resulting discourses define nationhood, religion, secularism, and belonging in the two societies.
Interviews with organization members (Quebec)
Organization name |
Organization type |
Interviewee name |
Conseil du Statut de la Femme (Council for the Status of Women) |
Feminist |
Leila Lesbet, Julie Latour |
Fédération des Femmes du Québec (Quebec Women’s Federation) |
Feminist |
Bochra Manai, Krista Riley |
Association féminine d’éducation et d’action sociale (Women’s Association for Education and Social Action) |
Feminist |
Marylise Hamelin |
Pour les droits des femmes du Québec (For the Rights of Women in Quebec) |
Feminist |
Diane Guilbault, Leila Lesbet, “Céline” |
Collective des féministes musulmanes du Québec (Collective of Muslim Feminists of Quebec) |
Feminist |
Bochra Manai, Krista Riley |
Mouvement laïque québécois (Secular movement of Quebec) |
Secular |
Michel Lincourt |
Indépendantistes pour une laïcité inclusive (Sovereigntists for an Inclusive Secularism) |
Sovereigntist |
Jean Dorion |
Juristes pour la laïcité et la neutralité religieuse de l’état (Jurists for Secularism and the Religious Neutrality of the State) |
Legal |
Julie Latour |
Barreau du Québec (Quebec Bar Association) |
Legal |
Pierre Bosset |
Association des musulmans et des arabes pour la laïcité au Québec (Muslims and Arabs for Secularism in Quebec). |
Cultural/religious |
Haroun Bouazzi |
Interviews with actors in Bouchard-Taylor commission (Quebec)
Name |
Role/Occupation |
Gérard Bouchard |
Professor of sociology, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi; co-chair of Bouchard-Taylor commission |
Charles Taylor |
Professor emeritus, philosophy, McGill University; co-chair of Bouchard-Taylor commission |
Jacques Beauchemin |
Professor of sociology, Université du Québec à Montréal; advisor to the Bouchard-Taylor commission |
Daniel Weinstock |
Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University; advisor to the Bouchard-Taylor commission |