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MCK9 1/10/2003 10:32 AM Page 161 9 Toleration and laïcité Cécile Laborde France is an indivisible, laïque, democratic and social republic. It ensures equality of all citizens before the law with no distinction made on the basis of origin, race or religion. It respects all beliefs. (Article 2 of 1958 Constitution) In September 1989, three schoolgirls wearing the traditional Muslim headscarf were barred from entering a school near Paris, and later expelled. The headmaster claimed to be applying a long-established republican rule prohibiting religious symbols
Through its focus on secular Muslim public intellectuals in contemporary France, this book challenges polarizing accounts of Islam and Muslims, which have been ubiquitous in political and media debates for the last thirty years. The work of these intellectuals is significant because it expresses, in diverse ways, an ‘internal’ vision of Islam that demonstrates how Muslim identification and practices successfully engage with and are part of a culture of secularism (laïcité). The study of individual secular Muslim intellectuals in contemporary France thus gives credence to the claim that the categories of religion and the secular are more closely intertwined than we might assume. This monograph is a timely publication that makes a crucial contribution to academic and political debates about the place of Islam and Muslims in contemporary France. The book will focus on a discursive and contextualised analysis of the published works and public interventions of Abdelwahab Meddeb, Malek Chebel, Leïla Babès, Dounia Bouzar and Abdennour Bidar – intellectuals who have received little scholarly attention despite being well-known figures in France.
On 7 January 2015 the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris were attacked during the magazine’s weekly editorial meeting, leading to the deaths of twelve of its staff. The attack sparked an unprecedented debate about freedom of speech both internationally and in France, and about the Republican values of laïcité (French secularism) that Charlie Hebdo has been portrayed as representing. The literature that emerged immediately in the aftermath of the attack centred around several dramatic moments such as the ‘Je Suis Charlie’ slogan, the Republican marches of 10
series of high-profile polemics about the signification of the headscarf and how it should be ‘managed’ in a secular state such as France. The issue was temporarily resolved in 1989 when the then socialist Ministre de l’Éducation Lionel Jospin argued that the headscarf should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, a position that was backed up by the highest court in the land, the Conseil d’État, which argued that headscarves were not, in themselves, contradictory to the principles of laïcité. However, the controversy resurfaced in 1994 when the centrist Ministre de
Republican ideology of laïcité and France’s Muslim citizens. The chapter will critically assess his work via engagement with a range of monographs, essays and articles published in France between 2002 and 2016. Despite the wide range of topics under discussion in Chebel’s work, it is nevertheless possible to identify a number of recurring themes such as reason, subjectivity, secularism, the body, love and sexuality in Islam. Chebel’s publications range from essays, monographs and scholarly debates (e.g. Chebel and Godin 2011) to the more didactic or popular education texts
tone for a wider debate in the country – one that national discourse has often taken pride in its tradition of secularism or laïcité – about minority rights and integration. The headscarf has come to be the visible symbol of Islam and, in many instances, framed as a threat to a constructed French of way of life, with the debate continuing to today. Discussing the place of a
consequences of multiple scandals have demonstrated a severe decline in the nation's affiliations with the Church. Secondly, with regard to France's Muslim population, Christian spaces appear far less systematically hostile than are non-religious or ‘ laïc ’ (secular) ones. In practice, across the boundary between the Christian and Muslim faithful, and beyond the common denominator of faith, certain conservative societal stances even converge – in particular concerning the family, procreation, or homosexuality. The ‘defence of laïcité
, ‘Signposts and Silences’, p. 306. 4 Sugrue and Gleeson, ‘Signposts and Silences’, p. 306. 5 For a comparative analysis and questioning of the stereotypes related to these two ‘models’ in the areas of ‘laïcité’ and ‘multi-denominationalism’ in particular, read Jeffrey Hopes, ‘Le Laïc et le multiconfessionnel: les modèles français et britannique sont-ils compatibles?’, in Thomas Ferenczi (ed.), Religion et politique: une liaison dangereuse? (Paris: Éditions Complexe, 2003), pp. 167–72. 6 For example Didier Lassalle, L’Intégration au Royaume-Uni: réussite et limites du
162 Conclusion The intellectuals discussed in this book have all enjoyed varying degrees of impact and notoriety in France but if they share one thing in common, it is that their work collectively contributes to a broad narrative of le vivre ensemble. They all present Islam as being capable of conforming to Republican laïcité and universalism, although they argue that the practices of Muslims do not always facilitate such potential compatibility. These scholars are thus, to varying degrees, critical of certain aspects of contemporary Islam and Muslims for what
State policies towards religion State policies towards religion in France have historically been shaped by an ideological battle between proponents of a combative secularism ( laïcité de combat ) and a pluralistic secularism ( laïcité plurielle ). Combative secularism aims to separate religion from the public sphere, whereas pluralistic secularism allows for the public