Introduction: why France?
Contextualizing the debate. A very modern tradition: background to the "new veiling"
The "cornerstone of the republic": secularism and the regulation of religion
French Muslims: between "integration" and "Muslimism"
A fifteen-year saga. 1989: three little girls and a great big "psychodrama"
1990-1995: from psychodrama to saga
1995-2004 and beyond: how ostentatiousness became conspicuous
Feminists caught in the contradictions. The politics of hijabization
Co-optations and instrumentalizations
Feminist confusions and confrontations
Conclusion: French lessons for the West?
Appendix: Chronology.