A Veil over France: Nationalist sentiments in the name of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

Ontological security studies detail the ways in which a state pursues the security of its sense of Self. The preservation of a state's self-constructed identity is as important as the material or physical securitization of the state, as this identity motivates domestic and international policy. When a state harbors a history of colonial prowess, the state's self-identity is constructed within logics that propped up the colonial era. Former colonizer states thus possess conceptions of the Self that are lamented in gendered logics of coloniality. Therefore when former colonial powers, such as France, pursue their ontological security they are attempting to preserve an identity that was built upon the Eurocentric, patriarchal logics that made colonialism prosperous. This manifestation of colonially-informed efforts of state securitization, is examinable through France, and the state's consequent treatments of their Muslim women. As a demographic that opposes and threatens colonial constructions of hierarchy, Muslim womanhood is disproportionately targeted by the colonially-allegiant French state.