The abaya ban, hegemonic feminism, and the conditional visibility of intersectionality in France’s public sphere

How Muslim women dress in public is a divisive issue in France and in French feminist thinking. Existing literature illustrates the relation between a highly visible secular feminism and the exclusion of Muslim and racialised women from the French universal—yet the role of increasingly popular intersectional and anti-racist discourse requires further theorisation. This article employs a feminist critical discourse analysis of the mainstream media coverage of the 2023 abaya ban in French public schools to examine who is voiced, visible, valorised, othered, as well as which feminisms are sanctioned/obstructed. I identify three frames: 1) femonationalism and protection from (Islamic) sexism, 2) liberal feminism, and individual choice 3) political intersectionality and its marginalisation. My findings suggest that while intersectionality is gaining ground in the French public sphere, political intersectionality—which centres Muslim and racialised women in the political agenda—struggles to access the mainstream. As such, even where intersections of sexism and Islamophobia are evoked, public debates on Muslim women’s clothing (re)produce identities and social structures which limit Muslim and racialised women’s participation in public life.