The history of the origins of the concept of intersectionality is deeply embedded in the U.S. context. The intertwined histories of the American women's movements and American race relations as well as the conjunction of several theoretical strands, such as the philosophical critique of the modern subject, poststructuralism, the critique from feminists of color, and critical legal studies, have marked the genesis and the operationalization of the concept of intersectionality in American feminist studies (Ackerly and McDermott Reference Ackerly and McDermott2011, Dhamoon Reference Dhamoon2011). This legacy has given the concept of intersectionality particular analytical contents, preferred objects of inquiry, and methodologies as well as specific political aims (McCall Reference McCall2005). Kimberlé Crenshaw's initial formulation of intersectionality exemplifies this U.S. genealogy since it represents a joint analytical and political effort, embedded in critical legal studies and black feminist theory, to identify and promote the political identity of African-American women or, as she writes, to “demarginalize” their political interests and to critique single axis approaches to inequality and discrimination (Crenshaw Reference Crenshaw1991). By doing so, the concept of intersectionality not only makes visible the categories and groups that were marginalized in theory and political practice, but also articulates a new set of political interests and, to a certain extent, contributes to construct and to represent intersectional identities.

Other conceptualizations of intersectionality have developed in parallel and in dialogue with the American concept, stressing, for example, the role of nationalism (Yuval-Davis Reference Yuval-Davis1997) in shaping the “matrix of domination” (Collins Reference Collins1990). However, there is still a pressing need to expand and contextualize intersectionality outside of the American context. The question is particularly burning in Europe. Indeed, in the past two decades a distinctive nexus articulating immigration, ethnicity, religion, and class has been forming in many European countries that can shed new light on the concept and the politics of intersectionality. The racialization of Muslim religious identities, which overlaps with the racialization of migrants and their children, has occurred in part through a series of public debates on Muslim and immigrant women: veiling, arranged and forced marriages, and female genital mutilations have been discussed in the public sphere (Rosenberger and Sauer Reference Rosenberger and Sauer2011), often with policy outcomes detrimental to migrant/Muslim women's rights and concrete lives.Footnote ¹

Thus, in the European context there is a need to conceptualize intersectionality in relation to immigration, nationalism, and Islam (El-Tayeb Reference El-Tayeb2011). What does this specific configuration bring to the conceptualization of intersectionality? I address this issue from the perspective of feminist movements, taking France as a case study. Indeed, born from conflicts inside American feminism, the concept of intersectionality continues to carry a critique of feminist theory and practice. I bring this insight to the analysis of the French women's movement and to the bottom-up politics of intersectionality that is unfolding in France today. One of the key findings that the French example brings about is the need to think more thoroughly about the role of religion in theorizing intersectionality. As religion plays an increasing political role in Europe, we must try to understand the dynamics that it creates for intersectional groups and for feminist politics.

Debates about veiling or forced marriage put feminist movements in a double bind: they offer a unique opportunity to promote women's rights in a public sphere often reluctant to relay feminist claims, but they also might fuel nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and Islamophobia and ignore the power dynamics shaped by class, citizenship status, and race existing between non-Muslim or nonmigrant women and Muslim or migrant women. Feminist organizations in France are all too aware of this dilemma. In fact, conflicts have been intense within the French women's movements on the issue of veiling (Scott Reference Scott2007). However, in the end a majority of French women's rights organizations has sided with power elites in proposing two bans in order to “protect” Muslim women—one passed in 2004 prohibiting the wearing of conspicuous religious signs in public schools, and another passed in 2010 prohibiting the wearing of face-covering items (i.e., full veils) in the public space.

A majority of French women's rights organizations have supported prohibitive measures, while some of them, such as the National Coordination for Women's Rights, decided not to take position on this divisive issue, and finally a small minority vocally opposed the laws. Thus, how can we explain that French women's rights organizations have, for the most part, supported prohibitive measures, which have paradoxical results—as activists themselves recognize—since, in the name of improving Muslim girl's and women's lives, they may in fact lead to Muslim schoolgirls being home schooled or in religious schools rather than in public schools, and since the 2010 ban might encourage devout Muslim women to stay at home and has also fueled acts of violence against veiled women in the public space?Footnote ²

The political positioning of many French women's rights organizations in favor of both bans is the result of a lack of intersectional theorization and politics within the French women's movements. In recent qualitative research I conducted and for which I interviewed 19 French women's rights organizations, I found that these organizations mainly use two discursive repertoires to talk about intersectional problems and issues such as bans on veiling. The most prevalent rationale is what I have called a “gender first” repertoire, which subsumes other identities or power relations under the struggle for gender equality. This universalist repertoire renders other axes of domination irrelevant for political action except when they can be understood as adding to gender oppression another layer of discrimination. Another commonly used repertoire, more familiar to organizations providing services to women than to advocacy-oriented ones, acknowledges differences between women due to other social structures than gender but approaches them only at the individual level. In other words, typically a veiled woman will be received and counseled on her own terms when she comes to the organization for help, but the organization itself will take an official position in favor of the legal ban on Muslim veiling in public space. This dichotomy between the acknowledgment of intersectionality in practice and the refusal to make it relevant to feminist politics reveals the conundrum in which French women's organizations find themselves as they wish to be inclusive and claim to practice sisterhood across differences while at the same time refusing to adopt an intersectional approach that would recognize patterns of discrimination and inequality linked to religious identity and ethnicity in their official political platform.

Hence, French feminist organizations do not ignore that banning veiling might place some women in difficult situations, but they believe that the remedy is worth the price to pay because by doing so, they are in fact helping a majority of women to emancipate, and they are protecting hard-won universal women's rights. Hence, the lack of intersectional reasoning enables them to discard the interests of a minority of Muslim women in the name of enhancing the interests of the majority of the women. Such a focus on the interests of the majoritarian group represented by an organization, at the expense of the interests of sub/minority groups, is common in activism and not specific to French women's rights organizations (Strolovitch Reference Strolovitch2007). However, in the French context, the prevalence of this “gender-first” approach is striking. Indeed, even organizations that identify as representing women from migrant backgrounds tend to adopt a similar positioning, some of them being at the forefront of the mobilization in favor of the 2010 ban.

How can we account for such a profound misrecognition of intersectional issues in the French context? I want to propose two hypotheses that shed light on the politics of intersectionality in France and, more broadly, to illustrate how the politics of intersectionality must always be contextualized if we want this concept to bring about the full extent of its analytical power.

The first hypothesis looks at the politics of intersectionality from the bottom-up and is concerned with the feminist project of emancipation as it has been inherited from the Second Wave feminist struggles and its relationship with religion. In the American context, the intersectionality of gender and race often posed the difficult problem of which political priorities women's organizations should adopt if they wanted to enact solidarity across the race divide (for concrete examples, see Smith Reference Smith1995 and Cole Reference Cole2008). However, what is at play in the contemporary European context is different and goes beyond the hierarchy of political priorities. Indeed, one of the salient features of intersectional politics in this context is the religious dimension, which has been intertwined with ethnicity, race, and immigration. This religious dimension challenges deep aspects of the feminist project inherited from the Second Wave, especially in the French context in which the struggle for abortion, which marked the 1970s, was associated with a struggle against an oppressive Catholic Church. Hence, intersectional issues in the French context not only call into question the political priorities that women's organizations should adopt (for example, over immigration policies, antidiscrimination, employment policies, and so on), but more importantly, it also challenges crucial features of the mainstream feminist emancipatory project.

During the debates over the Islamic veil, French feminists have been struggling to impose what they believe should be the standard of an emancipated subject, and for the majority of them this subject cannot hold a strong religious faith, let alone cover herself for religious reasons (Lépinard Reference Lépinard2011). Although many French feminists recognize that Muslim religious identity has been racialized and that Muslim women may face discrimination, this acknowledgement very rarely takes precedence over the idea that religion is oppressive to women and that, therefore, a central objective of the feminist struggle is to free women from religious oppression and belief. Hence, the religious dimension that characterizes intersectionality in the French and European context poses specific challenges for women's rights organizations that still have their roots in the Second Wave. Taking into account religion in intersectionality theory brings with it the question, What kind of emancipation should feminist organizations seek? Feminist notions of emancipation are deeply rooted in liberalism and secularism (Mahmood Reference Mahmood2005); however, the unfolding of intersectional politics in Europe presses us to think about how these notions are also exclusionary.

The second hypothesis looks from the top down at the dominant categories promoted by state institutions regarding racial identity and religion. Here, the French case shows that dominant narratives about citizenship and secularism in France, which stress color blindness, forms of cultural assimilation, and, more recently, a neutrality of the public space that is equated with the absence of minority religious signs from the public sphere, contribute to shape how women's rights organizations understand intersectionality and, therefore, their political positioning. Indeed, as comparative work has also shown (Rosenberger and Sauer Reference Rosenberger and Sauer2011), national narratives about citizenship and inclusion are important factors shaping how public debates and legislation on Muslim veiling unfold in Europe. French women's rights organizations are no exception to this finding. On the contrary, they relay dominant norms about secularism and race blindness in their discourses and practices. For example, whereas class is generally considered as a structure of domination that should be taken into account, therefore opening the door to a recognition of the intersection between gender and class, this is generally not the case with racial or religious identity. Only very few organizations propose alternative narratives or a more critical analysis of the political consequences that these hegemonic discourses have for already marginalized groups of women such as migrant or Muslim women.

As the French case shows, other dimensions than race contribute to the dynamics of intersectionality, especially in Europe. Hence, for many feminist organizations that traditionally identify as secular and have embraced the legacy from the Second Wave, the religious dimension of intersectional struggles in France and Europe poses specific challenges to acknowledging, and theorizing, intersectionality. This in turn means that intersectional groups' interests and identities are marginalized, not only on the mainstream political agenda, but also in feminist struggles. This last point is not new to American scholars of intersectionality; however, it encourages us to look more in depth at the role of religion, a dimension less explored by intersectionality scholars than race or sexuality, in the contemporary political dynamics in Europe and beyond, and to think critically about the relationship between feminism, liberalism, and secularism.