this “laicité” concept, which is often mistranslated as secularism

Hey that’s a very good point but you miss some French cultural/political context! Laïcité does exactly mean secularism, and its legal basis means freedom of thought/beliefs for everyone: laïcité was formally established in 1905 when the State was separated from the Church (again and almost finally, except in Alsace/Lorraine where the Catholic Church is still part of the State apparatus for other reasons).

The 1905 law clearly states that the State has no business telling people what to believe or not, that this is a private matter between people. This is the legal basis for laïcité.

But since the 80s, some segments on the far-left and far-right have been involved in transforming the concept in public discourse to target it against muslims. It started with unionized teachers from marxist-leninist organizations (was it FO? not sure anymore) refusing to do classes to veiled schoolgirls, and bringing TV crews to the classroom to embarrass those poor kids. I don’t believe at the time it was presented to be in the name of “laïcité”.

Then this discourse grew in both New Atheist circles (a subset of the wider anticlerical movement) on the left, as well as in Judeo-Christian conservative groups on the right. Especially after September 11th, this discourse was instrumentalized against muslims by building a narrative that veiled girls are supporters of terrorism or that they advocate for Shariah, or that they’re submitted to Male authority. Many outlets even made parallels to Afghanistan or Algeria, but we’re talking about kids who grew up here (for the vast majority), only speak French, and have no ties or clue to what’s happening around there. As for male domination, there’s a few blind spots in this argument:

• it’s just a piece of cloth?! you can be abused/dominated by men with or without any external sign for it
• if you truly believe the girls are being abused and they need to get help, how does it help to ban them from public schools so they remain in their bubbles?
• in many parts of the world France has colonized, women either held power or had a history of it (for example, Kahina in amazigh regions of North Africa is becoming a symbol again in the new struggles for Kabyl independence)
• women to this day in France are struggling to have their basic rights preserved (against police abuse and power/sexual abuse in the workplace and in education), no matter their religion (see also Me Too movement)
• men telling women what to do (or not to do) framed as a feminist argument, really? how is French police officers (male) asking a woman to undress any different from Iranian police officers (male) asking a woman to dress up?
• in particular in the western world, the “sexual liberation” movement of the 60s has given birth to a new norm/dogma where women must be sexually available for men to enjoy in the name of sexual freedom (where the veil is seen as an obstacle to sexual availability): this has been greatly described in Ovidie’s documentary À quoi rêvent les jeunes filles?

Starting with Sarkozy, this new formalized islamophobia was given a legal basis, which reused some discourse about laïcité but amended it so much that it completely lost the spirit. The new texts, instead of saying that the State must be neutral in faith/religious matters, says that agents of the State and public services must not promote religion in any way: this led to the ban of religious signs from public servants (which may or may not have been illegal before, but was certainly not enforced), which was then extended more broadly, for example for parents accompanying children on school trips. And more recently, it’s given birth to the complete hysteria about “burkini” and other non-sensical racist “controversies”.

All along, this was anti-muslim racism. It actually predates the situation i just described: colonization in much of the world (including french colonies) was often framed as a humanitarian intervention against uncivilized (male) barbarians hurting their poor women (which some political commenters have dubbed “white men saving brown women from brown men”). For example at the height of the colonial war in Algeria (1950s-1960s), the French government was organizing mass unveiling campaign (see this poster with the message: “aren’t you pretty? unveil yourself”).

Frantz Fanon has explained in great lengths how the colonial enterprise must destroy any sense of belonging or cultural identity in the colonized in order to succeed. I strongly recommend (all of) his books. If you speak french, Un racisme à peine voilé (“A thinly-veiled racism”) is a documentary from 2004 which goes to great lengths to explain the rise of the anti-veil sentiment in schools since the 80s. It’s a bit dated and does not account for the most recent racist developments but is still very much on-point.

One last point to conclude: newer, restrictive laws on “laïcité” (against religious signs) do not apply in practice to christians and jews, and even less so to minority religions whose religious signs bigots are unable to recognize. It’s not uncommon to see public servants (including teachers) wearing christian crosses, despite the law saying otherwise.