“White feminists should accept that [veil-wearing] women want to develop their own feminism based on their own situation,” she wrote in a Guardian article, “and that this feminism will take their Islamic culture into account.”

The stock leftist analysis is that France is a racist country and that the only critique of religious fundamentalism is coming from the racist Right. But there are feminists in France who will not follow the cultural relativist line and vigorously challenge it.  One such is Malka Marcovich, a writer, historian and international consultant for women’s and human rights for the last 25 years. She is appalled by the attitude of many feminists in France, in particular those who believe that freedom of expression for religious fundamentalists is more important than it is for secularists and anti-Islamists.

“Christine Delphy is a minority in France,” she says. “The feminist majority have fought against cultural relativism. The struggle of many feminists is that we believe in secularism and universalism. It is the only system [under which] women can be free.”

Marcovich is concerned that those Muslim-born women who have rejected religion have been abandoned by the cultural relativists, and are not supported when they publicly criticise Islam. “They say we are racist, that we are colonisers,” she says. “The young women you see in the street wearing the hijab? Their mothers took it off. A lot of women from France have been saying for years that in certain neighbourhoods you can’t go out without wearing a veil, but nobody listened.”

She sees a danger in allowing the far Right to monopolise criticism of anything to do with Islam. “If you speak out, you are accused of being racist,” she says.

Amira (not her real name), an Algerian-born woman, has lived in the Parisian suburbs since 1974. Ten years ago    she began teaching at a primary school in a predominantly Muslim area, and was warned on the first day not to say anything “negative” about Islam to the children.

“I think they were nervous of me because at the job interview they asked about my religion. I was very clear that I do not have one. But they pushed, and I said I had been born into a Muslim family but that I had rejected all of it.

“Many of the girls cover up [with a hijab] once they are in the school grounds, and the head teacher, who is a religious Muslim, asked if I would also wear a scarf to cover my hair. I politely refused, and from that day I knew my job was at risk.”

Despite the obvious opposition to Amira’s secularist beliefs, she bravely decided to complain to the head teacher about the fact that the hijab was not forbidden at the school, a contravention of French law.

“He started screaming at me, jabbing his finger in my face, and asking what kind of whore I was to go against my faith and support the racist French system.

“After the jihadist attacks many of the teachers blamed the French for the massacre. I was disgusted. I really worry about what they are telling the girls and boys at school. They said it was to do with the history of colonialism and imperialism, and not the fault of the actual murderers.