2023-11-29 19:13:00
At two ends, through two Belgian municipalities, and in as many contrary signals 7 months before the elections, the debate on the veil returns to the gates of the news, which it once once more comes to poison, insinuating itself into the vague legal rights left vacant by a national policy which has never really dared to resolve the question.
On the same day, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled (largely) in favor of the municipality of Ans which had prohibited one of its employees from wearing her Islamic headscarf.
Almost at the same time, a completely different vision was advocated in another Belgian municipality: in Anderlecht, the head of the Ecolo group is pushing, with the support of the PTB, for the passage of a motion authorizing the wearing of all a sign of conviction, therefore of the veil, in the administration, including for people in contact with the public.
Beyond the obvious accounting and communitarian calculation of the Greens, it is a major principle of our democracy which is at stake here: that of the neutrality of the State, which guarantees that a representative of the State cannot pass his convictions before his public mission. “The State prevails over the individual”, in short. Of course, when these same state agents take off their “public costume”, they once once more become individuals free of all their religious and/or ideological convictions, in the private sphere. Whether by wearing a veil, a cross, a yarmulke, a t-shirt with a hammer and sickle or with the image of Che.
The debate is allegedly complex. We find it, however, simple at its root, even if too vast for the municipal shoulders. And summed up in one question: should the law adapt to individuals, or should individuals adapt to the law? For 30 years, politicians have been struggling with this issue, torn between defending the principle of neutrality and societal evolution. The courage to really face it would be welcome, calmly, that is, far from the “Islamo-leftist VS racist” caricatures, please. But is it still possible?
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