from London, United Kingdom
Introduction
Last year in France a series of violent attacks labelled by the French government as acts of ‘Islamist terrorism’ have reignited an heated public debate and evaluation of the country’s relationship with its Muslim minority estimated at six millions, the largest in Europe. A controversial draft law proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron against ‘Islamic separatism’ is set to be debated by the French Parliament in the upcoming months, in the midst of international criticism on Islamophobia in France. This article will provide a critique of these events in terms of the expanding hegemonic power of the French state and its imposition of laïcité as political theology (Mavelli, 2012) as part of a broader phenomenon of the expansion of the global liberal order.
Background events
On the 25th of September 2020, an 18-year-old man born Pakistan attacked two people outside the former Paris offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, seeking revenge for the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The assault was condemned by the French government as ‘clearly an act of Islamist terrorism’. On the 2nd of October 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a controversial speech in which he described Islam as a religion ‘in crisis’ worldwide, and proposed new legislation to further push religion out of education and the public sector in France in order to combat ‘radicalisation’ and ‘Islamic separatism’, and to protect secularism as ‘the cement of a united France’. In this regard, it is important to notice that wearing hijabs is already banned in French schools and for public servants on duty.
This speech generated a backlash on social media and angered a number of Muslim-majority countries, sparking a heated exchange between Macron and Turkish president Erdogan. The situation further escalated on the 16th of October, when teacher Samuel Paty was decapitated in Paris by an 18-year-old refugee of Chechen origin for showing to his students a caricature of the prophet Muhammad from Charlie Hebdo during a class on the freedom of speech, angering some of the Muslim parents. Macron spoke about Paty as ‘the victim of a typical Islamist terrorist attack, killed for teaching the freedom of expression’ in an ‘attack to the Republic and its values’. Moreover, on the 29th of October a 21-year-old Tunisian immigrant killed in a stabbing attack three Christians at prayer in Nice, which Macron referred to as an ‘Islamist terrorist’ attack on ‘our values, our taste for freedom’.
State discrimination of Muslims
While members of the Muslim community in France have consistently denounced the aforementioned violent acts as going against the religious precepts of Islam, the French government has contributed with its language to the targeting of Muslim people, failing to distinguish between Islam and extremism. Muslims are currently experiencing collective punishment by the French government in the wake of terrorist attacks, with a government crackdown against Muslim organisations and mosques. Exceptional measures adopted by the French Parliament since 2015 have led to thousands of abusive and discriminatory raids and house arrest disproportionately targeting Muslims. Last year Amnesty International has produced a report titled “Discrimination Against Muslims: The State Must React”, which denounced a “hostile climate and discriminatory discourse” towards Muslims in France.
The French Minister of the Interior Darmanin has proposed to ban the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), an association that tracks anti-Muslim hate crimes, as an ‘enemy of the Republic’. This move has been criticised by more than fifty civil society groups and academics, and the CCIF has accused the French government of ‘criminalising the fight against Islamophobia’.
Darmanin has often made very controversial claims expressing his intolerance towards Islam. He has listed very basic religious freedoms including praying, fasting and growing a beard as ‘signs of radicalization’. He has also spoken of a ‘civil war’ to defend France’s secular Republic against ‘separatist’ Islam, suggesting that ethnic food aisles in supermarkets should be closed because contributing to ‘separatism’. Crucially, the language and positions of the far-right party of Marine Le Pen on this issue have become mainstream and adopted by politicians both on the right and on the left side of the political spectrum (Wagner & Meyer, 2017).
A self-defeating language of ‘Islamic separatism’
The government’s narrative of combating ‘Islamic separatism’ is highly problematic, as it implies that there is a Muslim majority actively trying to set itself apart from the rest of the French society (Geisser, 2020). Nevertheless, this narrative is factually incorrect, as a large number of studies and quantitative research through the years have shown that the majority of Muslims in France are well integrated at cultural and social level (ibid., 2020).
Crucially, this narrative is self-defeating, as instead of strengthening French Muslims’ sense of belonging to the nation and fighting radicalism as it claims to do, it might convince some that they are different from other French people, encouraging the establishment of a distinct Muslim identity and community within France –which is exactly what the state has been trying to avoid in the first place (ibid., 2020).
Radicalization of Muslim youth
It is important to notice that all the aforementioned attacks were perpetuated by young Muslims. On one hand, this is consistent with previous research on ‘Islamist violent extremism’ showing that the most heinous terrorist operations are the product of a younger generation of Muslims who have little to no links with traditional political parties in the Middle East and do not have knowledge or adequate training on the faith and value system of Islam (Steger, 2009, 538).
On the other hand, it is also important to notice that the latest generations of people of Muslim immigrant origin are increasingly becoming more religious than their parents and grandparents, as they feel alienated from the French customs adopted by their older relatives (Mallet, 2020). In this regard, a recent Ifop opinion poll found that 57% of French Muslims under the age of 25 think sharia law is more important than French law, with a 10% increase from just four years earlier. This radicalization of Muslim youth in France can then be attributed to the discriminatory language of the French government.
The ‘Secularity and Liberty’ Law
In January 2021, a group of lawyers, NGOs and religious bodies from 13 countries have submitted formal complaints to the United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR) to critique the proposed legislation against ‘separatism’ as ‘solely focused on consolidating the government’s political, ideological, theological and financial control of Muslims’. The coalition also called for action against France’s more than two decades-long state abuse against Muslims and ‘entrenched structural Islamophobia’.
Similarly, this article argues that the controversial draft law on ‘secularity and liberty’ proposed by Macron against ‘Islamic separatism’ that is set to be debated by the French Parliament in the upcoming months can be understood as expanding the hegemonic power of the French state. The law would ban the ‘importation’ of foreign-financed and trained imams, and it would provide tax breaks and state funding to mosques that sign a charter accepting French principles of secularism, democracy and the rule of law, imposing the use of the French language in all mosques. This is consistent with Darmanin’s attempts at pushing the state towards the creation of a ‘French secularised Islam’.
It is important to notice that this law violates the very concept of laïcité that it claims to protect, as enshrined in the 1905 law on the separation of church and the neutrality of the state over matters of religion. This demonstrates that the worst enemies of French laïcité are not Muslims, but actually those who claim to be its champions. In this regard, the majority of Muslims in France do not criticize the 1905 law, but rather they criticise a more recent and ideological interpretation of laïcité that has become a cover for anti-Muslim racism (Geisser, 2020).
The hegemonic state
This article argues that the controversial draft law against ‘separatism’ can be understood as the result of a dogmatic political theology of laïcité led by the hegemonic French state. The latter defines itself as secular and claims to act in the name of secularism/laïcité, whilst paradoxically asserting its hegemonic power over all spheres of life of its citizens, including the religious sphere. Asad (2006), Salvatore (2007), Jansen (2011) and Mavelli (2012; 2013) frame laïcité as a secular Foucauldian power-knowledge regime deciding in an authoritarian fashion the place of religion in society and the modes of acceptable religious expression.
The control exercised by the state on the religious sphere is demonstrated by the following religious ‘exceptions’ allowed under the French Republic. Heavily state-subsidized Christian and Jewish schools; the region of Alsace-Moselle in which the state pays the salary of religious men and owns all church property; the role played by the Church of Rome and the presence of official religious councils (Terray, 2004).
It is then paradoxical to claim that the laws restricting Muslims are enacted by the state to protect laïcité, considering that laïcité itself is behaving as the new state religion (Horowitz, 1998 in Killian 2003, p.570).
The French model of integration
Mavelli (2012, p.63) speaks of secularism as “an equally dogmatic political theology, which aims at the assimilation of Muslims into the secular ideal of French citizenship”. Such model of integration fails to recognize that secularism is not a universal ideal model of the relationship between religion and politics, but rather a product of European history and its ‘Judeo-Christian legacy’, Medieval Christendom, and long and bloody wars of religion that led to the division between state and church in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. These historical events have originated a de-Christianized sovereign state that defined religion as a dangerous passion that needs to be confined to the private sphere in order to allow freedom of conscience, peace and modernity (Asad, 2006, p.498).
Moreover, this model of integration reveals a French – and European – attitude of failing to recognize that the integration of Islam is a potential enriching transformation (Mavelli, 2012, p.62-63), uncovering old Orientalist prejudices. As argued by Said (1978), throughout European history it is possible to observe a process of construction of the East by the West, which he calls ‘Orientalism’. This can be understood as a Foucauldian power-knowledge relationship, a discourse of Western domination and Eastern subjugation, that defines Western identity as superior, civilised, democratic, moral and rational, in opposition to the inferior, uncivilised, authoritarian, immoral and irrational ‘Other (Said, 1978, 3). Moreover, Mamdani (2002, p.767) affirms that the West perceives Islam as “petrified in a lifeless custom”, and Muslim people as unable to transform their culture and thus in need to be philanthropically saved from the outside.
The global liberal order: International Relations meet Criminology
The hegemonic discourse of the French State and its increasing surveillance over every aspect of life of citizens is part of a broader trend of the expansion of the global liberal order through (quite illiberal) biopolitical strategies of Foucauldian governmentality.
There is an expanding field of academic literature combining approaches from International Relations and Criminology in order to shed light on the alarming trend of normalization over time of the incorporation of aspects of paramilitary policing into everyday policing of civilian populations (McCulloch & Pickering, 637). Aradau and van Munster (2009) highlight the dangerous implications of living in a modern society dominated by a politics of fear and precautionary risk, which provide legitimization for larger and larger categories of the population being controlled and contained through mass surveillance and data collection.
According to Aradau and van Munster (2009), the most alarming effect of this incremented biopolitical governmentality is the lack of social transformation, especially in terms of the crystallization of the status quo and the lack of social justice for marginalized groups, which are the main targets of violent policing. In this regard, McCulloch and Pickering (2009) stress the similarities between the US permanent occupation of Iraq and the aggressive policing of African-American neighbourhoods in US cities. Another example can be found in the recent Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and institutionalized racism in the US and the protests against the ‘Global Security’ Law in France.
The ‘Global Security’ Law
The move towards a surveillance state in France is proven by Macron’s attempts to simultaneously pass the draft law on ‘secularity and liberty’ –which would put the whole infrastructure of Islam under state surveillance– and a ‘Global Security’ Law. These two draft laws combined amount to a massive and unprecedented assault on civil and constitutional liberties.
Since discrimination against Muslims in France is already prevalent in every sector including in interactions with the police, there is every reason to believe that the global security law would disproportionately affect them.
The ‘global security’ bill has been met by mass protests across France, as it would remove accountability for police violence, with up to 45,000-euro fine and a jail sentence for anyone showing images of a police or army officer. Both Amnesty International and the United Nations have denounced this law.
Concluding remarks
To conclude, the purpose of this article was not to belittle the problem of terrorist attacks in France, but rather to denounce the climate of structural Islamophobia and discrimination towards French Muslim in the hegemonic discourse of the state. This discourse in turn is causing more fragmentation in the French society, constraining integration processes and increasing the likelihood for future violent terrorist attacks. This article further denounces how France is becoming a surveillance state and highly criticises the ‘secularity and liberty’ law and the ‘global security’ law.
Finally, this article invites further academic research on accounts of diversity and alternative counter-hegemonic discourses challenging state power. One example of this can be found in the women who participated in marches against the headscarf ban by wearing the French flag as headscarf as a symbol of the compatibility of their Muslim and French identity (Choudhury, 2007).
Bibliography (A-K)
Aradau, C. and van Munster, R. (2009). Exceptionalism and the “war on terror”: criminology meets international relations. British Journal of Criminology, (online), Volume 49(5), pp. 686-701. Available at: doi:10.1093/bjc/azp036 (Accessed 5 January 2021).
Asad, T. (2006). Trying to Understand French Secularism. In: H. De Vries, L.E. Sullivan, ed., Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 494-526
Choudhury, N. (2007). From the Stasi Commission to the European Court of Human Rights: L’Affaire du Foulard and the Challenge of Protecting the Rights of Muslim Girls. Columbia Journal of Gender and Law (online) Volume 16(1), pp. 199–296. (Accessed 17 Nov 2019).
Geisser, V. (2020). Is France Fueling Muslim Terrorism by Trying to Prevent It? The New York Times, (online). Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/opinion/france-terrorism-muslims.html (Accessed 14 Feb 2021)
Jansen, Y. (2011). Secularism and Religious (In-)Security: Reinterpreting the French Headscarf Debate. Krisis – Journal for Contemporary Philosophy (online) Volume 2, pp. 2–19. Available at: http://dare.uva.nl/document/347264 (Accessed 12 Nov 2019).
Killian, C. (2003). The Other Side of the Veil: North African Women in France Respond to the Headscarf Affair. Gender and Society (online) Volume17(4), pp. 567–590. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3594658?seq=1 (Accessed 5 Nov 2019).
Bibliography (M-W)
Mallet, V. (2020). French Muslims divided over Macron’s planned law to curb Islamism. Financial Times, (online). Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/b6c0681f-3a0a-40fa-8b90-86997925f6b0 (Accessed 14 Feb 2021)
Mamdani, M. (2002). Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism. American Anthropologist (online) Volume 104(3), pp. 766-775. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3567254?seq=1 (Accessed 14 Nov 2019).
Mavelli, L. (2012). Europe’s Encounter with Islam: The Secular and the Postsecular. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 1-172.
Mavelli, L. (2013). Between Normalisation and Exception: The Securitisation of Islam and the Construction of the Secular Subject. Millennium-Journal of International Studies (online) Volume 41(2), pp. 159-181. Available at: https://journals-sagepub-com.chain.kent.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1177/0305829812463655 (Accessed 15 Nov 2019).
McCulloch, J. and Pickering, S. (2009). The British Journal of Criminology, (online), Volume 49(5), pp. 628-645. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23639183 (Accessed 5 January 2021).
Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Press.
Salvatore, A. (2007). Authority in Question: Secularity, Republicanism and “Communitarianism” in the Emerging Euro-Islamic Public Sphere. Theory, Culture and Society (online) Volume 24(2), pp. 135–60. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0263276407075003 (Accessed 5 Nov 2019).
Steger, M.B. (2009). Religion and Ideology in the Global Age: Analyzing al Qaeda’s Islamist Globalism. New Political Science, (online), Volume 31(4), pp. 529-541. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/07393140903322596 (Accessed 2 January 2021).
Terray, E. (2004). Headscarf Hysteria. New Left Review (online) Volume 26, pp. 118–127. Available at: https://newleftreview.org/issues/II26/articles/emmanuel-terray-headscarf-hysteria (Accessed 13 Nov 2019).
Wagner, M. and Meyer, T.M. “The radical right as niche parties? The ideological landscape of party systems in Western Europe, 1980–2014.” Political Studies 65.1_suppl (2017): 84-107 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0032321716639065
***
Autore dell’articolo*: Laura Mariani, studentessa MSc International Relations Theory presso London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) e laureata BA (Hons) presso School of Politics and International Relations of the University of Kent. Esperta di Relazioni Internazionali, Diritti Umani e Gender Studies del Think Tank.
***
Nota della redazione del Think Tank Trinità dei Monti
Come sempre pubblichiamo i nostri lavori per stimolare altre riflessioni, che possano portare ad integrazioni e approfondimenti.
* I contenuti e le valutazioni dell’intervento sono di esclusiva responsabilità dell’autore.
Editor’s Note – Think Tank Trinità dei Monti
As always, we publish our articles to encourage debates, and to spread knowledge and original and alternative points of view.
* The contents and the opinions of this article belong to the author(s) of this article only.