The president of the Movement for France, Phillippe de Villiers, presents himself as “the last defender of the Rebublic against communitarianism”. Le Figaro interviewed de Villiers on November 2, 2006, and in that interview de Villiers called for the prohibition of the veil in all public spaces in France. De Villiers called Islamism “an empirical problem” that “it is impossible to ignore.” In response to this “Islamic problem”, he proposed that France “impose her values”, in particular by prohibiting the Islamic veil in the streets or in public buildings. He called for this on the grounds that “the islamic veil is the symbol of female submission and wearing it detracts from her dignity.” In addition, de Villiers asserted that the veil was an obstacle to “the appearance of national community” and an tool used by the activits who “attack the foundations of the Rebublic.” De Villiers cited an August 2006 study from the Pew Research Center that reported that 46% of French Muslims saw their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. This, he claimed, was an obvious political problem. “I am only saying what the French citizens are already thinking,” de Villiers averred. “This will be an essential question for the 2007 presidential election: I am the only one to break the taboo, and the last defender of the Republic against [Islamist] communitarianism.”
