To browse Academia. Skip to main content. You're using an out-of-date version of Internet Explorer. Log In Sign Up. French Culture, Politics and Society. Volume 31 2 , Julie Billaud. Julie Castro.
This slogan, which playfully distorted the motto of the government-sponsored organization Ni putes ni soumises Neither Whores, Nor Doormats , could be read on one of the many banners displayed in the demonstration.
During this event, two feminine figures were relegated to the end of the parade, walking side by side in an unexpected and involuntary association: prostitutes and veiled women. Ironically, veiled women and girls received on their way the same sexist insults as sex workers, their sisters in exclusion.
The majority of secular French feminists have supported these laws. These new legal measures have also allowed once-marginalized feminist arguments to come to the forefront of political discourse. Through what dynamics did veiled women and prostitutes become sisters in exclusion? In what ways do debates around prostitution and headscarves shape the new boundaries of French cit- izenship and fuel new forms of nationalism?
We argue that over the past decade, French nationalism has undergone a rapid transformation that can be captured through an analysis of the social and political handling of two fig- ures: veiled Muslim women and prostitutes. The interest of studying veiled women and prostitutes together lies primarily in the fact that their bodies, either covered or revealed, have been identified by the state as problematic and, therefore, as requiring political intervention.
