Religion And Secularism In France Today

This volume explores the dynamic life of religion and politics in France. The separation of church and state and the autonomy of school education from religion are the two fundamental pillars of France as a secular republic. The historical construction of French secularism (laïcité) was particularly marked by the strong opposition between the state and the Catholic church. However, the religious disaffiliation of a significant proportion of the French strengthened state secularism, which gradually became more consensual – despite some persisting tensions in the school context. Yet, in the last decades, several factors have revived public debate on laicity: the quarrel over ‘sects’ and new religious movements; controversies over Islam, today the second-largest religion in France; and, more recently, dispute over bioethics. Faced with these challenges, laicity as well as the religious groups involved have been changing. The authors of this book, ranking amongst the best French experts in the study of religion and secularism, introduce the reader to a living and lived laicity influenced by the social and religious dynamics of contemporary France. They demonstrate that the configurations of French secularism are both more flexible and complex than they appear to be. The volume investigates the extent to which the French idea of secularization has been pushed to be more thorough and radical in its interaction with its other European counterparts. A key work on French political thought, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of international politics, political philosophy, political sociology, and religion and politics.

The increasing visibility of Islam in France and the vehemence of debates about it have often contributed to narrow public perceptions of secularism to a simplistic antireligious crusade, a misleading image disseminated by the media and politicians alike. Taking the opposite stand, this book embarks on a comprehensive effort to document the multiple areas in which French secularism plays out - in debates over “cults,” places of worship, chaplaincy services in public institutions, the recognition of associations of worship, and more -, outlining and analizing the legal paths favored by the state in the regulation of religious diversity. While Islam has undoubtedly contributed to the reshaping of French secularism in the last decades, the book moves beyond what has come to be known as the "Muslim Question" to look at the multiplicity of challenges contemporary religious beliefs, practices, and organizations now pose to the state. David Koussens examines the main political and legal configurations of French secularism over the last thirty years through a sociological and juridical lens, in order to better document its diversity. Such a portrait emphasizes that French secularism is not a univocal phenomenon but one that appears in many guises.

In Unveiling the French Republic, Per-Erik Nilsson engages in a critical analysis of national identity, secularism, and Islam in France. He argues that secular ideology has been used to justify religious intolerance, mask ethnic prejudice, and reify French national identity.

Comparing policy in America, France, and Turkey, this book analyzes the impact of ideological struggles on public policies toward religion.

Americans are often baffled by France’s general indifference to religion and laws forbidding religious symbols in public schools, full-face veils in public places, and even the interdiction of burkinis on French beaches. An understanding of laïcité provides insight in beginning to understand France and its people. Laïcité has been described as the complete secularization of institutions as a necessity to prevent a return to the Ancien Régime characterized by the union of church and state. To understand the concept of laïcité, one must begin in the sixteenth century with the Protestant Reformation and freedom of conscience recognized by the Edict of Nantes in 1598. This has been called the period of incipient laïcité in the toleration of Protestantism. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 reestablished the union of the throne and altar, which resulted in persecution of the Huguenots who fought for the principle of the freedom of conscience. French laïcité presents a specificity in origin, definition, and evolution which led to the official separation of church and state in 1905. The question in the early twentieth century concerned the Roman Catholic Church’s compatibility with democracy. That same question is being asked of Islam in the twenty-first century.

The history and politics of secularism and the public role of religion in France, India, Turkey, and the United States. It interprets the varieties of secularism as a series of evolving and contested processes of defining and remaking religion, rather than a static solution to the challenges posed by religious and political difference.

Amidst claims of threats to national identities in an era of increasing diversity, should we be worried about the upsurge in religious animosity in the United States, as well as Europe? This book explores how French society is divided along conflicts about religion, increasingly visible in public schools, and shows the effect that this has had.

In 1989 three Muslim schoolgirls from a Paris suburb refused to remove their Islamic headscarves in class. The headscarf crisis signaled an Islamic revival among the children of North African immigrants; it also ignited an ongoing debate about the place of Muslims within the secular nation-state. Based on ten years of ethnographic research, The Republic Unsettled alternates between an analysis of Muslim French religiosity and the contradictions of French secularism that this emergent religiosity precipitated. Mayanthi L. Fernando explores how Muslim French draw on both Islamic and secular-republican traditions to create novel modes of ethical and political life, reconfiguring those traditions to imagine a new future for France. She also examines how the political discourses, institutions, and laws that constitute French secularism regulate Islam, transforming the Islamic tradition and what it means to be Muslim. Fernando traces how long-standing tensions within secularism and republican citizenship are displaced onto France's Muslims, who, as a result, are rendered illegitimate as political citizens and moral subjects. She argues, ultimately, that the Muslim question is as much about secularism as it is about Islam.