In Prospect (free article), Ruth Harris explains that the French ban is part of a long war of anti-clericals against the church.
Throughout the [19th] century such issues were part of a wider trend, in which the spectre of religious manipulation stalked the anti-clerical imagination. The Jesuits were thought to be plotting to restore the Monarchy.
Actually, most of the Catholic church in France in the 19th century was actively and covertly doing its absolute best (a) to control French education (b) to install a friendly government. At the extreme, the Ultra-Montanes (recidivist aristocrats and senior churchmen) did indeed form secret societies whose purpose was to bring the French church – and ultimately the French state – under the control of Rome.
Why doesn’t R. Harris come clean about this? Because like so many well-disposed people she has forgotten what our very own church militant used to be like. Nor does she make the connection between Muslim oppression of women and the policies of the current Catholic church. Those of us who want a complete separation of church and state cannot afford to treat the world’s religions as if they were all as toothless as the C of E. Oh, I’d forgotten – they have their problems with women, too.