Abstract

Since November 2020, the French government under Emmanuel Macron has decried the so-called rife nature of Islamo-gauchisme, an alleged but vague alliance between the political left and ‘Islamism’, which in practice ultimately stigmatises decoloniality but also any sympathy and humanising of French Muslimness that does not conform to the state’s desired mode of Islam. Not only are such political claims problematic given the lack of evidence upon which they are based and the sociopolitical hysteria that they generate, but also in the way in which such claims diminish the role of the left and liberalism in generating and maintaining Islamophobia. Typically, racisms more broadly have been conceived of as being a fringe far-right issue tied to illiberal ideals. Furthermore, across Europe the left has often found and subsequently relied upon the ethnic minority or Muslim vote in gaining and maintaining political power. Nonetheless, increasingly via its normalisation Islamophobia transcends the political spectrum—in short, it is banal in society, politics and legislation. Both the political left and right, and illiberal and liberal ideals are employed widely in legitimising Islamophobia and to generate a ‘common sense’ logic of controlling Muslimness. This chapter seeks to critically examine the role of the left and liberalism in gendered Islamophobia—namely, the impact of left-wing liberal Islamophobia on Muslim women via an in-depth consideration of historical and feminist perspectives, alongside current legislation and the popular responses to these in the French and Belgian context via a decolonial lens.