Ethnoreligious Politics in France: Jews and Muslims

Abstract

This article focuses on the relationship between the two major ethnoreligious communities – the Jews and the Muslims – and the state in France, as reflected in lobbying, electoral behaviour, and public policies. It shows how the evolution of that relationship, an aspect of the politics of ethnicity, religion and multiculturalism, has been both a cause and a consequence of modifications in approaches to secularism, communitarianism and affirmative action. Finally, it deals with the question to what extent this development corresponds to a pluralist or corporatist model of politics and argues that changes in the relationship between state and society suggest an evolving accommodationist pattern increasingly similar to that of the United States.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Jonathan Laurence and W. Rand Smith for their useful comments on an earlier version, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, 28–31 August 2003.

Notes

A manifestation of this position is France's refusal to ratify the European charter on minority languages.

In a mock election conducted during a mass Jewish event in 1980, more than 95 per cent of the (mostly Jewish) audience voted ‘no’ on the question whether Giscard should be re-elected president.

This allegation is found in D'Ormesson 1999.

Note that the first private Muslim secondary school, the Lycée Averroës, opened in September 2003 in Lille. ‘It is not a religious institution, and will welcome 30 students, boys and girls, with or without headscarves and whatever their religion may be: Judaism, Islam, Christianity’ ( News from France 2003). Initially funded from private sources, the school hopes to be officially subsidised within five years on the basis of a contrat d'association with the state.

In 1994, when the chief rabbi of France complained about the fact that the second round of cantonal elections was scheduled for Passover and argued that voting on that day violated religious prescription, he was criticised for religious interference in the political process (Tincq 1994).

France has been trying for a generation to become an active participant in efforts at resolving the Arab–Israeli conflict, but, given its pro-Arab orientation, has been repeatedly rebuffed by Israel as well as the United States; and given its recent disagreements with the latter over Iraq, France is hardly likely to be admitted to the table of negotiations.

Note that only about ten per cent of Muslims attend mosque on a regular basis rather than merely during the great festivals (Ternisien 2001). This is not much different from the degree of religious observance by Catholics and Jews.

A paid advertisement, in Le Monde, 26 Oct. 1985, entitled ‘Rassemblement islamique de France’, indicates that the special role of the Mosque of Paris as a rassembleur had already been clear more than 15 years earlier.

The president of CRIF Rhône-Alpes, Alain Jakubowicz, argues that although Jews and Muslims have the same rights as Christians in France in theory, they often must make special representations to secure them in practice. He cites as examples the fact that for many ostensibly laic purposes it is the Christian calendar that counts. ‘The Christian citizen may … go to church or [Protestant] temple on his religious holidays; the Jewish or Muslim citizen cannot do this. A Christian student does not have to worry that the beginning of the academic year or the date of examinations coincides with an important [religious] holiday; but a Jewish or Muslim student does. As a young lawyer, my request to postpone a court appearance during Yom Kippur has been refused in the name of laïcité’ (Jakubowicz 2003).

The law was used on several occasions against Robert Faurisson, a Holocaust denier, as well as against Le Pen. Attempts have also been made to use it against Oriana Fallaci, an Italian journalist, for her book La Rage et l'orgueil (Paris: Plon 2002), which is a vehement critique of Arabs.

He was, however, quietly reassigned to the embassy in Algeria. More recently, the French ambassador-designate to Israel referred to that country as a paranoid state and to Prime Minister Sharon as a thug (Rosier 2003).

Non-citizen immigrants, for the most part Maghrebis, have also played a role in local politics through a process that is midway between an election and lobbying. In 1987, a group of resident foreigners in Amiens voted for a number of ‘représentants associés’ of the municipal council. However, every time these products of what have been called ‘phony elections’ (élections bidon) met to express their views, they did so in a purely consultative capacity, before a council whose official session had been suspended (Solé 1987).

The exceptions have been Alain Madelin of Démocratie libérale and François Bayrou of what is left of the UDF.

For an excellent example of that literature, see Wilson 1987: 31–8. Wilson dealt with economic and professional groups and educational associations; and the only other category was such ‘advocacy groups’ as the ecologists. But neither ethnic nor religious groups were mentioned.

The official name of that museum, funded jointly by the national government and the city of Paris, is Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du judaïsme (ostensibly in order to emphasise the non-communitarian nature of that institution), but its exhibits clearly go beyond matters of religion.

The taboo against official recognition of a specific ethnoreligious group had been broken earlier by the annual commemoration of the deportation of Jews during under the Vichy regime in 1942; and the taboo against affirmative action was lifted in 2002 with legislation on gender parity.

The presidential committee ‘Sur la laïcité dans la République’ (appointed in July 2003) is chaired by Bernard Stasi, the médiateur (ombudsman) of the republic. Composed of 20 members, it was charged with taking testimony from about 100 people and was to present its report to Chirac at the end of 2003 or early in 2004. The Assembly committee – ‘Mission d'information de l'Assemblée nationale sur la question des signes religieux à l'école’ – is chaired by Assembly Speaker Debré, a hitherto uncompromising Jacobin.

Interview with Malek Boutih, who resigned as president of SOS-Racisme and at a meeting of the PS in Dijon in June 2003 was appointed member of the national secretariat of that party (Mandraud and Zappi 2003).