In the program "C Politique", on France 5, the writer returned to the controversy sparked by the hearing of a student unionist wearing the veil.
"I find it lamentable, I find it unworthy, I find it disloyal … (…) I have not been told that democracy is to humiliate people, to despise them (.. .) we can be against the veil, I understand that. Everyone has the right to have the opinions they have. (…) But there is a big difference between being against the veil and attacking a veiled woman. ", explained with emotion, Sunday, September 20, Leïla Slimani in the program C Politique, on France5.
These words come in a tense context: Maryam Pougetoux, vice-president of the student union UNEF, aroused controversy, on September 17, because of her hijab in the National Assembly. The latter was then castigated on all sides. Leïla Slimani thus revolted at the decision of several deputies to leave a committee because of the presence of a veiled student among the people questioned. Anne-Christine Lang, LREM MP, had denounced a gesture going against secularism.
"Because to do that is to do the same thing as attacking a woman who shows her hair and tells her that she is a prostitute. (…) It is reducing the woman to what she or what she does not have on the head (…) that these people dare to use the word of 'feminism, that makes me ashamed. Feminism is humanism, it's not about disrespecting people. "", added the author of A sweet song and winner of the 2016 Goncourt Prize.
"Our society needs more intelligence, more understanding, more time ", concludes the writer who tends her prose towards communication, sharing and not individuality.
For her part, MP Anne-Christine Lang tweeted: "No 'ad hominem' attack dear Leila Slimani. Just a rejection of the provocation of the UNEF, the defense of the institution and its values, of the Republic and of universalist feminism. Always."
On the Twitter public square, Internet users congratulated Leïla Slimani's words.
During the famous committee, LREM president Sandrine Mörch recalled that wearing the veil "was in no way an attack on secularism and that the wearing of religious symbols was not prohibited by the rules of the Assembly." recalls the Huffingtonpost.
To go further on the subject: Letter to my mother who wears the headscarf