ABSTRACT
On 18 September 1989, Ernest Chenière, principal of the collège GabrielHavez in Creil, decided to expel three young girls from his school for wearing Muslim scarves in class. By the middle of October the affair of the Muslim ‘scarves’, ‘veils’, or ‘tchadors’ had become front-page news in national dailies and major news magazines, and the subject of at least one debate in the National Assembly in which the Minister of Education Lionel Jospin was obliged to take a stand. Jospin ultimately referred the affair to the Conseil d’Etat whose very ambiguous ruling came down at the end of November. The debate none the less continued, splitting the government and the Socialist party and eventually contributing to a National Front victory in the parliamentary by-election in Dreux. And while the affair is certainly not over, the issue of immigration and, especially, integration has returned to the forefront of national politics in France.
