Déjà vu in French presidential politics

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Monday he will run again for the presidency in the 2017 election, unveiling a domestic agenda that includes banning pork-free lunches at schools and any “exterior signs of religious affiliation” in schools and workplaces. Sarkozy details his proposals in a book he released Wednesday, titled Tout Pour la France (All for France).

“The identity of France must be our first battle,” Sarkozy writes.

French social media buzzed with speculation about the book’s cover, where all the title’s letters are blue except the final “t” in “tout,” which is red. Some speculated Sarkozy meant it to be a Christian cross, harkening back to France’s Christian roots. Twitter users joked that Sarkozy violated his own proposal to ban religious symbols. Others lightheartedly noted the similarity between Sarkozy’s “t” and the “t” of Télépéage, an auto-payment for car tolls (similar to the American E-Z Pass).

The French obsessed about the “t” because the candidacy announcement itself did not surprise anyone. Sarkozy indicated for months he would return to politics. Current French President François Hollande, a member of the Socialist Party who defeated Sarkozy in his bid for reelection in 2012, is extremely unpopular.

But before he can reclaim his old job, Sarkozy must overtake in the polls the more popular Republican Alain Juppé to win his primary. He appears to be positioning to the right of Juppé, taking a hard line on immigration. With the country reeling from a string of Islamist terror attacks, Sarkozy is betting the public wants to reassert the “French identity,” as he writes, and increase restrictions on Muslim religious expression. France has the largest population of Muslims in Western Europe, and the strictest laws against public religious expression.

This isn’t a new persona for Sarkozy. As president he made France the first country to ban the niqab, the Muslim veil that covers a woman’s face. If a woman is caught wearing the niqab in public in France, she is subject to a 150 euro fine and may have to take a course on French citizenship. France already bans wearing any religious symbols in public schools, and Sarkozy is proposing to extend that ban to universities and workplaces.

France is dealing with several debates over Muslim religious expression right now. Fifteen towns this summer have now banned “burkinis,” the full-body swimsuit some Muslim women wear to the beach. And another controversy erupted this month in a town where a young Muslim woman tried to open a driving school that offered separate classes for men and women. The mayor decried the women-only classes as “communautarisme” (a derogatory term implying American-style accommodation for isolated minority groups) and citing his commitment to “the values of the Republic.”

In addition to banning alternative, pork-free lunches for Muslim and Jewish students at French schools and banning headscarves in public places, Sarkozy says in his book that France should strictly monitor the training of imams to make sure they speak French and understand French law.

Sarkozy’s proposals against religious expression would not survive in a U.S. court. But France has a very different legal landscape on such matters, operating under the principle of “laïcité” or state-enforced public secularism.

“The situation in France is part of a growing trend towards restrictions on religious liberty in Europe,” said Alliance Defending Freedom International counsel Laurence Wilkinson in an email. Wilkinson is based in Strasbourg, France, where the European Court of Human Rights meets. “Governments are rightly concerned about the threat of terrorism and Islamic extremism, but in many instances governments are responding to this threat with ill-thought through and far-reaching restrictions that should concern people of all faiths and none.”

One recent case underscores how different American religious freedom jurisprudence is than European jurisprudence on these matters. A Belgian company told a longtime receptionist she was not allowed to wear a hijab, then fired her after she wore a headscarf to work. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in an advisory opinion that the company was justified in banning the headscarf. An advisory opinion is not a final judgment but usually indicates how a court will rule.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court came to the opposite conclusion in an 8-1 ruling. In that case, Abercrombie & Fitch didn’t hire a Muslim teenager because her hijab violated the company dress code. The Supreme Court ruled the company should have worked to accommodate the woman’s religious expression.

“Title VII does not demand mere neutrality with regard to religious practices—that they be treated no worse than other practices,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the opinion. “Rather, it gives them favored treatment, affirmatively obligating employers not ‘to fail or refuse to hire or discharge any individual … because of such individual’s religious observance and practice.’”