When the French debate on the full-face veil was launched in April 2009 by Communist MP André Gérin and later championed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, the political stunt appeared too obvious to swallow. A government only too happy for some breathing space as it struggled to overturn its widespread unpopularity. And yet, as the testimonies of 32 niqab-wearing women I interviewed for an Open Society Foundation study reveal, many French people fell head first for the diversionary strategy and overnight came to believe that it was their right, even their republican duty, to behave as members of a secularist enforcement squad.
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