Early on, leaders along every plot of the ideological spectrum dubbed the hijab a “marker of difference” and an “affront to civilization,” sound bytes that infected the political discourse and invited bigoted extremists into French corridors of power. Fringe populist political parties were now front and center, and the explicit Islamophobic rhetoric that once conflicted with French political sensibilities was now mainstream.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 708