The pandemic exposed the fundamental hypocrisy of the French plague. While every citizen was ordered to cover their face, Muslim women who covered their face for religious purposes were legally reprimanded and fined 150 euros, fifteen more than the penalty for violating the new face mask mandate. One face covering was legally mandated, the other legally prohibited. Even if a Muslim woman like Ibtissam wore the very same piece of cloth around her face as a niqab instead of a face mask, the intention of wearing it for Islamic purposes could garner punishment. It took a pandemic to expose the absurdity of this French policy and the capricious nature of a gendered Islamophobic regime that denied the free exercise of religion rights to Muslim women.

DEFINE: Contrasts the niqab ban, framed as religious freedom denial, against the pandemic face mask mandate that made face-covering compulsory.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 728