Le foulard de la parlementaire: Républicanisme critique et criticisme républicain

The article returns to the controversy aroused in Belgium by the swearing-in of a parliamentarian wearning an Islamic scarf. It emphasizes the similarity of the arguments used to those that arose during the French debate on wearing the scarf, which Laborde analyses in her book Français, encore un effort pour être républicains! (People of France, another effort to be republican!), but points out that these arguments can take on different meanings depending on whether they are used in a liberal or a republican framework. Following Laborde, the article defends a critical republicanism, even if the adjective is understood more in reference to Kantian criticism than to social criticism. The primacy accorded by Laborde to the deconstruction of situations of domination is thus toned down to the advantage of the reconstruction of an intercultural identity.