The French are arguing about headscarves again. In their capacity as “conspicuous” religious symbols, these coverings were banned from schools in 2004. Now, there’s a serious proposal to prohibit under-15-year-olds from wearing headscarves in all public places. The most prominent advocate of the measure is Gabriel Attal — a former prime minister who currently leads Renaissance, the political party founded by Emmanuel Macron.

As expected, there’s a lot of opposition to the idea on the Left — and especially within Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise party, which draws much of its support from the country’s Muslim population. However, the issue is also turning into a civil war across the centre ground of French politics. François Bayrou, who is Macron’s current Prime Minister, this week intervened to pour scorn on Attal’s proposal: “Does it mean that, in the streets, police officers will tell young women, ‘Show me your ID so I can see if you’re old enough?’”

Bayrou, though part of the wider pro-Macron alliance, is not a member of Attal’s party. But Élisabeth Borne — another former prime minister — is a Renaissance member, and she has expressed her “greatest doubts as to the constitutionality of this measure”. So why is Attal — the poster boy of French liberalism and Macron’s political heir — alienating his centrist colleagues?

Ostensibly, the proposed ban is a response to a government report on the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Attal can also appeal to the French tradition of laïcité (i.e. secularism with knobs on). The cynics, however, will say that his true motivation can be discerned in recent opinion polling for the next presidential election.

This reveals a Right-wing shift in French politics. For a start, the main candidate of the hard Right — Jordan Bardella (or Marine Le Pen if the courts let her run) — leads the first-round vote by a clear margin. Attal will also have an eye on the growth of support for other Right-leaning rivals.

Though not in the running for president, one might also mention Éric Ciotti, who last year led a breakaway faction of the Republicans into alliance with Le Pen, and Michel Barnier, the former anti-Brexit hero who went on to demand a referendum on immigration (one wonders where he got that idea from).

So with the Overton fenêtre moving fast, Attal must know that his best chance of getting through to the second round is to be the candidate who can compete with Bardella or Le Pen in the toughness stakes, while retaining enough liberal credibility to rally Leftish voters to his cause.

As things stand, the centrist — or conservative — most likely to make it to the final round is Édouard Philippe, whose popularity is based on upsetting as few people for as long as he can get away with it. But with the likes of Bruno Retailleau catching up, there may be enough angry French voters to put two controversial candidates into the run-off: an out-and-out Right-wing populist and a slightly less scary option. If Attal can persuade the pro-Macron parties that he is the best alternative, then he’s in with a shot.

The irony is that on the previous occasion that Attal and Bardella met in debate, it was the Right-wing populist who wanted to ban Islamic attire in public. How times change.

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Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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