Headscarves & Eurovision
The Europeans | European news, politics and culture
Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer
0.0 • 0 Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2021
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pretty much everyone has their face covered in public these days, and yet Switzerland is set to become the latest European country to ban (non-Covid) face coverings in public — including Muslim garments like the niqab and burqa. Given that barely any Swiss women wear these, what exactly is going on here? This week we speak to Inès El-Shikh of the Foulards Violets feminist group about what this referendum campaign has felt like for Muslim women.
Also this week: Eurovision! We've been scrutinising the rather threatening lyrics of the Belarusian band kicked out for being too political. Plus, an ancient Roman coffee table and France's reckoning with the past.
This week's Isolation Inspiration: White Rabbit Red Rabbit; And Then We Danced; and Are We Europe's delightful recipe cards, a perk of their awesome membership programme.
Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast and would like to help us keep making it, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few euros / dollars / pounds a month at patreon.com/europeanspodcast.
Producer: Katz Laszlo
Assistant producers: Priyanka Shankar and Andrei Popoviciu
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello,omenique. |
| 0:24.0 | Hi. |
| 0:24.6 | I thought we could do this entire episode in French, because I've got my interview this week for my French citizenship application. |
| 0:29.5 | Oh, that is exciting. Sorry, I thought you'd just gone mad. |
| 0:32.0 | Just gone mad. No, I've actually spent a large part of the last week, like, desperately cramming, you know, like, the name of every French king in history and all of the regions and the names of all the rivers. |
| 0:44.1 | It's been quite stressful. It feels like a school exam or something. |
| 0:47.0 | Why do you need to know all the French kings? Aren't they, like, happy that they got rid of them. It is a republic now, but they do want you to know your history and geography, |
| 0:55.3 | as well as just, you know, whether you're going to be like a good citizen and contribute to the |
| 0:58.6 | nation, etc. But I am a bit worried about being asked about names of rivers. So that's what I've been |
| 1:03.5 | doing. I have been muttering the names of rivers to myself. Well, if any of the French |
| 1:07.7 | immigration services are listening to this podcast, then I can guarantee |
| 1:10.8 | that Katie is a very dedicated, would be a very dedicated French citizen. |
| 1:16.5 | Thank you. |
| 1:18.1 | What's happening with you? |
| 1:19.2 | It's election week in the Netherlands. |
| 1:20.4 | That's exciting. |
| 1:21.2 | Yeah, is it? |
| 1:22.2 | I don't know. |
| 1:23.0 | Maybe not. |
| 1:23.6 | Yeah, I mean, it's kind of exciting. |
| 1:24.8 | At the time of recording, we're still in the midst of voting. |
| 1:28.4 | But yeah, by the time this episode comes out, you'll all know the results probably, which will be that... |
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