Veil & religious-symbol bans
State laws (France; Quebec)
Laïcité-based restrictions on the headscarf and face veil are defended as religion-neutral secularism and women’s-equality measures, and attacked as laws that in practice single out Muslim women — the clearest “policy” case on the contested line.
What happened
France’s 2004 law banned “conspicuous” religious symbols in state schools; its 2010 law banned concealing the face in any public space (debate centred on the niqab). Quebec’s Bill 21 (2019) bars public employees “in positions of authority” — teachers, police, judges — from wearing religious symbols on the job. Though drafted in religion-neutral terms, all three centred on Islamic dress.
France’s 2010 law: “no one may, in public space, wear clothing designed to conceal the face.”
Under each definition
Facially neutral secularism, but critics argue the disparate impact on Muslim women constitutes structural anti-Muslim racism.
Restricting the hijab/niqab directly regulates a visible expression of Muslimness — the core of the APPG test.
Read as state hostility to Islamic practice and to Muslims.
Secular liberals split: some see laïcité/neutrality as legitimate; others see a state coercing minority women and infringing individual religious liberty.
Who called it Islamophobic
Muslim women’s advocates and rights groups argued the laws targeted Muslims in effect and restricted religious freedom.
The defense
France invoked laïcité, security, and “living together”; Quebec framed Bill 21 as state religious neutrality and pre-empted challenges with the notwithstanding clause.
Outcome
In S.A.S. v. France (2014) the European Court of Human Rights upheld the 2010 ban on “living together” grounds; Quebec’s Court of Appeal upheld most of Bill 21 (2024), and the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear the case.
In their words
[The Court accepted that] the barrier raised against others by a veil concealing the face could be seen as breaching others’ right… to live in a space of socialisation which made living together easier.
The verdicts above are how each framework would most likely treat this case — illustrative guidance, not official rulings. The frameworks diverge most on speech and ideas: the OIC “defamation of religion” lens and the secular/free-speech position often reach opposite conclusions on the same act. See the Definition tab for each framework’s full text. Inclusion is documentation, not a finding.