Deconstructing French Legislation on the Islamic Headscarf: A Derridean Reading of the Prohibition Bills on ‘Conspicuous Religious Symbols’

Abstract

Aim of the Study: The research aims to scrutinize French legislation since 2003, through Derrida’s deconstructive hermeneutics, to dismantle the fixity, singularity, and unified meaning of various legal postulates.

Methodology: This study is based on close textual analysis of selected news articles on anti-hijab sentiment in France. The key concepts of Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction, including the metaphysics of presence, aporia, logos, binary oppositions, and de-logocentrism, are discussed in relation to anti-scarf French legislation. Since Derridean deconstructive hermeneutics of argumentation is the main concern of this study, his seminal works, such as Of Grammatology and Points... Interviews from 1974-1994, served as the theoretical framework for this study. Derrida’s work also employed for its postulates on deconstruction as a mode of inquiry. 

Findings: Using the Derridean perspective, the study explores new horizons by dismantling the fossilized deadlocks of the Aporia of meaning and the authoritative centralized structure of human thought.

Conclusion: This study concludes that conscious attempts at national integration remain undecidable because the concept of secularity is fluid and lacks fixed meanings. Therefore, when binary logic within the controversy is destabilized, it calls for a study of the deferral of meaning rather than a static structuralist approach to the wearing of clothes or the conspicuous display of signs of affiliation with a faith.