ABSTRACT
Like so many progressive intellectuals (ranging from Liberalism to Marxism), the author have long considered that "Secularism" and "Cosmopolitanism" are complementary notions and that we should try to build or rebuild a discourse combining a definition of secularism, even a secularist perspective, with a cosmopolitan perspective. Since these considerations are very abstract, allow us to illustrate with a concrete example the kind of situation and debate that lead us to rethinking the contradictory articulation of cosmopolitanism and secularism. This episode, known as the legal and political controversy about the wearing of the so-called "Islamic veil" or hijab by young Muslim girls in schools and its prohibition by the state authority in the name of constitutional secularism, has been widely discussed outside France, perhaps at the cost of some simplifications.
