Why the French bill against “Islamist separatism” goes beyond France, Islam and the Separation of Religion and State
Metin Koca, ERC PRIME Youth Project Post-Doc Researcher, European Institute, Istanbul Bilgi University
December 2, 2020
The French government’s bill to prevent “Islamist separatism” sparked an international controversy, mostly for the wrong reasons. In contrast to the widely shared perception, this controversy does not emanate from a mini-clash of civilizations between France and the “Muslim World”, but a transnational confusion over the management of diversity.
In response to the criticism that the French government sponsors Islamophobia, French President Macron insists that his government’s bill does not target French Muslims, but those “who distort Islam by killing and slaughtering in the name of this religion”. Macron takes the role of the guardian of French Secularism, laïcité, whereas Turkish President Erdoğan, who also leads a putatively laik state, argues that “neither freedom nor [the true] secularism is present in France”. Apart from having a claim on secularism if needed, Erdoğan appointed himself as a representative of Muslims in Europe. Confusion may be the last thing that politicians want to convey. Therefore, speaking against each other confidently in the name of people, ideologies and value-systems might be beneficial for Macron and Erdoğan in their political campaigns.
My aim with this blog post is to explore the transnational implications of the new French bill which, I think, have been obscured by a combination of rhetorical questions, ethnocentrism, and political opportunism.
The bill on “Islamist separatism” is not just about terrorism.
Beyond targeting terrorists, Macron’s operationalization of secularism primarily targets the groups that may be described as “neo-fundamentalists”, whose primary concern is emphasizing certain religious codes to make a contrast with what they see as Western forms of behavior (e.g. regarding salutation, dress, food).[i] Simultaneously with the state’s irresponsible withdrawal from “Islamist no-go-zones”,[ii] these groups gained power under exceptionally unfavorable socioeconomic conditions, in some of the most impoverished areas of France. Thus, it remains doubtful whether any attempt to replace their codes with more inclusive ones is possible without addressing the structural problems that entrench their alienation.
While eliminating these groups, the government also hopes to impose on Muslims a new culture that is compatible with “French Values”. For example, to promote “gender equality”, the new law will oblige Muslims to shake hands with whom they see as non-mahram, and swimming pools to operate in the same hours for all genders.
Even though there is no causal link between these expressions and the terrorist attacks, the French government aims to give a clear message to “the enemies of the republic.” With this aim in mind, interior minister Darmanin emphasizes that the recent police raids are not necessarily linked to the investigations into the acts of terror.
A selective defense of laïcité hides many other disagreements.
What about other faith communities in France, including some of the fastest growing religious fundamentalisms (e.g. Pentecostalism, Jehovah’s Witnesses): do they meet the value-laden requirements of the French government? This blog post is not the place to discuss the alternative uses of secularism in different parts of the world, from India that is hospitable to religious differences to Canada in which Québecers favor their Catholic heritage. However, in order to put this question into a historical context, I find it necessary to touch upon the transformation that laïcité went through in France.
Macron’s way of defending laïcité reproduces the semantic shift that the concept underwent after 1989.[iii] In the context of the veil controversy in Creil, this date marked the first steps of secularism’s departure from the “left” to the “right” of the French political spectrum. It was a starting point for the National Front to limit its formerly Catholic traditionalist, homophobic, racist, and anti-semitic outbursts arguably for the sake of focusing on its primary enemy, that is Muslims and immigrants.
In the climate of a national identity crisis, some left-wing circles that share a general suspicion towards religions have found themselves in the same camp with selective secularists, who emphasize the Christian identity of France while waging war against Islamic symbols in the name of secularism. This exclusive focus on Islam, which is a success of the far-right, leads the public opinion to assume that non-Muslims in France have a clear agreement on the content of “French Values”.
“French Values” are not just French, and the opposition to them is not just coming from the “Muslim World”.
As much as it could be explained, the content of “French Values” (e.g. freedom of expression, gender equality, mixed-sex education) does not seem distinct from the liberal value-systems that are present in other societies, including even predominantly Muslim ones. Many Muslims support the bill from within[iv] and outside France,[v] whereas many Catholics and Orthodox Christians tend to express their frustration with the mockery of faiths.[vi]
In collaboration with the Catholic Church in Poland, the Polish government’s declaration of war against “the gender ideology”[vii] was based on so-called traditional family values, which are not very different from those of traditional French Muslims who are not happy with the new law. In the same vein, opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, and supporting male dominance in the institution of family, the Reformed Political Party (SGP) clearly has problems with the liberal values that are dominant in the Netherlands. All in all, it is impossible to explain the current anti-immigrant coalitions in Europe solely based on different value orientations.
The misleading assumption that each nation is founded on a unique set of values is also popular outside Western Europe. A remarkable example is Turkey, especially in the context of Erdoğan’s reaction to the concept of French values. Despite his harsh criticisms of Macron, Erdoğan repeatedly claims that the Turkish society is based also on common values—i.e. supposedly “religious” and “traditional” ones. Like their French counterparts, these values do not have a consensual, operational definition. Instead of bothering himself with the task of defining them once and for all, the president prefers to represent them while marginalizing the opponents of his government.
A Concluding Remark
Contrary to the trend, recent public debates suggest that arguments based on the assumption of common values are detrimental to a system of rights, freedoms, and duties.[viii] They are introduced not only to overstate the threat of difference, but also to undermine concerns that people share in spite of their differences. In PRIME Youth project, we aim to understand the common concerns of youth in Europe, who are at the center of the trouble. Our preliminary findings already seem to indicate that these concerns include unemployment, social immobility, political distrust, and the dismantlement of the welfare system.
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[i] see for a detailed account of neo-fundamentalist movements in Islam: Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (Columbia University Press, 2004).
[ii] As Burgat underlines, Macron identified this process some time before he changed course: “We have ourselves built up our own separatism. The separatism of our suburbs and housing projects, the ghettoisation that our Republic[...]allowed to develop[...]we have built up a concentration of impoverishment and hardships[...]We have concentrated educational and economic difficulties in certain areas of the Republic[...]We have thereby ourselves created neighbourhoods where the promises of the Republic are no longer fulfilled.” François Burgat, “France’s State-Sanctioned Islamophobia Is the Biggest Threat to the Republic | Middle East Eye,” The Middle East Eye, November 25, 2020, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/banning-frances-collective-against-islamophobia-will-endanger-rule-law.
[iii] On 18 September 1989 in Creil, three female students were suspended for refusing to remove their headscarves in class.
[iv] “A call from Muslim intellectuals : « The boycott of France must stop »,” Le Monde.fr, November 3, 2020, https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2020/11/03/an-appeal-from-muslim-intellectuals-the-boycott-of-france-must-stop_6058330_3232.html.
[v] Elham Manea, “The Case for Supporting Macron’s Stance on ‘Islamist Separatism,’” SWI swissinfo.ch, November 24, 2020, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/the-case-for-supporting-macron-s-stance-on--islamist-separatism-/46179236.
[vi] Elise Ann Allen, “Bishops Condemn Terrorist Attacks, Lament Mockery of Faith,” Crux, November 4, 2020, https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2020/11/bishops-condemn-terrorist-attacks-lament-mockery-of-faith/.
Nick Squires, “Pope Francis: ‘You Cannot Make Fun of the Faith of Others,’” The Telegraph, January 15, 2015, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/the-pope/11347931/Pope-Francis-You-cannot-make-fun-of-the-faith-of-others.html.
Stoyan Zaimov, “Patriarch Tawadros Say Insulting Islam Is Wrong,” The Christian Post, January 15, 2015, https://www.christianpost.com/news/charlie-hebdo-pope-francis-patriarch-tawadros-say-insulting-islam-is-wrong-turkey-warns-it-will-not-tolerate-muhammad-drawings.html.
[vii] Masha Gessen, “The Abortion Protests in Poland Are Starting to Feel Like a Revolution,” The New Yorker, November 17, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-abortion-protests-in-poland-are-starting-to-feel-like-a-revolution.”
[viii] see my studies on this assumption, Metin Koca, “On the Borders of Cultural Relativism, Nativism, and International Society: A Promotion of Islamist Democracy in the Middle East after the Arab Uprisings,” All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace 6, no. 2 (2017): 43–63; Metin Koca, “Tracing Cultural Change in the Reproduction of Intolerance:‘Secularism’,‘Islamism’ and Others in Turkey’s Experience of Democratization” (PhD Thesis, European University Institute, 2019).