Islam in France

Islam is the second largest religion in France, with approximately 5 million adherents, after 45 million adherents to Catholicism, and before Protestantism (1 million), Buddhism (600 000), Judaism (525 000) and French Eastern Orthodoxy (150 000) (data: 2000-2003).

In 2003, between 5 and 6 million people of Muslim extraction live in France: over 35% come from Algeria, 25% from Morocco, 10% from Tunisia (all former French colonies). The interior ministry in 2001 estimated the number of French converts to be around 40,000. The CIA World Factbook 2005 estimates that the muslim population make up between 5% and 10% of the total population in France.

All these statistics must be taken with some caution: the French Government does not tally religion in its census information and other official polls.

Statistics

The best estimates of an interior ministry source in l'Islam dans la République (Haut Conseil à l'intégration, Nov. 2000, p.26) publishes the following figures for the distribution of Muslims by area of origin (the numbers have been criticized as undercounting the number of illegals):

Algeria 1,550,000
Morocco 1,000,000
Tunisia 350,000
Black Africa 250,000
Turkey 315,000
Converts 40,000
Asylum Applicants/Illegal 350,000
Asians 100,00*
Other 100,000
Total 4,155,000

These numbers include non-religious or atheist individuals of Muslim extraction. The study L'Islam en France et les reactions aux attentats du 11 septembre 2001, Résultats détaillés, of the Institut Français de l'Opinion Public, (HV/LDV No.1-33-1, 28 September 2001) found that of people of Muslim extraction, 36% self-describe as "observant believers", and 20% claim to regularly go to the mosque on Fridays. 70% said they "observe Ramadan". This would amount to a number of roughly 1.5 French Muslims who are "observant believers", another 1.5 million without religious belief who culturally identify with Islam enough to observe Ramadan, and 1 million of "Muslim extraction" with no strong religious or cultural ties to Islam.

Muslim population in France

There have been Muslims in France since the colonisation of Algeria in the 1830s. It is estimated there were tens of thousands as early as the 1920s. Muslim immigration, especially of men, primarily from Algeria and other North African colonies, was very high following World War II, because the French workforce was inadequate for reconstruction efforts.

The Muslim population is now estimated at 5 to 6 million (compared to a total French population of about 60 million people). This is only an estimate, since census of religious adherence is prohibited by French law. Most social scientists believe this number is too low, and speak of as many as 8 million Muslims in France (compared to 12 to 20 million in the European Union).

The terms "Arab" and "Muslim" are often confused; in practice, Arabs can be Muslim, Christian, agnostic, etc.; while Muslims can be non-Arab (like Turks and Iranians); a number of French people have converted to Islam. However in the popular perception "Arab" and "Muslim" are often seen as synonymous. This perception is probably reinforced by the fact that Arab Muslim issues are much more visible and problematic, and because their voices are more polemic than Christian Arab voices (like the popular novelist Amin Maalouf).

The number of French non-Arabs who have converted to Islam is unknown; some surveys suggest up to 30,000 conversions have occurred in the last few decades; some in the Muslim community claim a number ten times as high. Official number of Turks hovers around 360,000 in France¹, while unofficial immigration remains unreflected in statistics.

For many French people, the term Muslims is unprecise, as they sometimes use it to refer to an ancestry, and sometimes as a varying set of religious practices. However, if religious adherence and ethnic origin may be juxtaposed and even reinforced by each other, they are not synonymous. The French State does not legally recognise ethnic background, but in recent years the government has tried to organize a representation of the French Muslims. Then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy initiated the creation in 2002 of a "French Council of the Muslim Religion" (Conseil National du Culte Musulman); this association, though it is informally recognized by the national government, is merely a private nonprofit association with no special legal status. As of 2004, it is headed by the rector of the Paris Mosque, Dalil Boubakeur.

The first generation of Muslims, who are today retired from the workforce, was not seen as immigrants, neither by the State and the employers, nor by Muslims themselves. Muslims kept strong ties with their countries, where their families often lived. Then, in 1974, the government favored regrouping families, and children and wives moved to France. Most Muslims asked for French nationality at this time.

The situation was different with the second generation, in majority born in France, and as such French citizens. They do not intend to go to their country of origin, with which they have few bonds. They often feel like immigrants, even though they may have little knowledge of the country of their ancestors.

Olivier Roy indicates that the fact they are Muslims is only one element among others. Their identification with the area of origin is much stronger: they are first Algerians, Moroccans, Kabyles, Turks. In general, the weight of the identity of origin is stronger for the first generation, which is why religious buildings built by this generation are Turkish, Tunisian, Moroccan, etc.

This is not so true especially with the second generation of Arab Muslims, who often do not even speak Arabic. They have many generational conflicts with newer Imams (Muslim religious leaders). Most immigrant Imams have an education based solely in Islamic fundamentalism, learned outside France. Their rejection of French secular enlightenment values are at odds with some of the modern modernized French Arab Muslim youth, but are very appealing to other French Arab Muslim youths. A conflict seems to be growing between those advocating French imams to be trained in France, up to French academic standards, including fluency in French, and in accordance with French and EU legislation (including human rights and a secular, democratic state), and those insisting that imams should be trained in Muslim countries (and as a consequence often at odds with French & EU legislation etc.).

The French Muslim population has a higher birth rate than non-Muslims, though the numbers are dropping. The offspring of immigrants from North African countries (mostly 2nd generation) are referred to (and refer to themselves) as beurs or beurettes. The term comes from verlan, a type of slang formed by reversing the syllables of words: "beur" = "arabe" (via a-ra-b-e -> be-ra- -> beur).

¹[In French: Bulletin, République de Turquie Ministère du Travail et de la Sécurité Sociale, Direction générale des Relations internationales et des Services pour les travailleurs à l’étranger, Avril-Juin 2004, http://www.calisma.gov.tr/birimler/yih/bulten/fransizca/fransizca2.htm]

Muslim religious practices

Those who want to behave as active Muslims must define themselves, in terms of their relationship with the country of origin, their positioning with the host country and the definition of a religious identity which is not the simple transfer of the religious identity of their country of origin.

In France, two tendencies co-exist (see also Five Pillars of Islam):

Some assume their religion within the French model: they practice prayer (salah), observe the fast of Ramadan, don't eat pork and don't drink wine. This tendency is the one followed by the majority of French Muslims: about three quarters of French Muslims fast during Ramadan, about two-thirds avoid alcohol, and most do not eat pork.
Others request the recognition of an Islamic community in France (which community remains to be built) with an official status.

Two large organisations, the Federation of the French Muslims (Fédération des musulmans de France) with a majority of Moroccan leadership, and the Union of the Islamist organisations in France (Union des organisations islamistes en France), influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.

1,535 mosques are numbered in France, though only a dozen have been built for that use. About 30 are currently being built. There is a Muslim school in Réunion (French island to the east of Madagascar), and the first Muslim collège (school for students aged 11 to 15) opened its doors in 2001 in Aubervilliers with 11 students. 2 other schools are planned (2003).

Publicly funded State schools in France must be secular (due to the separation of Church and State). If parents wish their children to be educated at a religious school, then they must send them to a private school. Fee-charging Catholic schools are commonplace. Unlike most private schools in the USA and UK, these religious schools are affordable for most parents since they may be heavily subsidised by the government. So the founding of Muslim schools is a significant development of the French Islamic community. For the issues surrounding Islam and the State school system, see The hijab issue below, and French headscarf law.

Integration issues

Reaction to the rise of Islam as a social and political force among Muslim immigrant groups

The French first saw Islam as an invasion from former colonies.

Today, mass media play an important role in the perception that non-Muslim French have of French-Muslims. French media points to the high rates of crime and poverty among certain immigrant communities, and to the influence individual Muslims have had on national athletics, the arts, and popular culture. In France, Islam is especially present in popular suburbs. The Muslim population is very concentrated, mostly in parts of Paris, Marseille, Lyon, and Strasbourg. In Paris suburbs, Seine St-Denis host numerous Muslim people (one-third of the total population), and is undergoing high rates of unemployment (30% in La Courneuve). It is one of the most violent département of France, with a high murder rate, antisemitic violence, vandalism, and drug dealing.

Some parties, such as Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National and Bruno Mégret's Mouvement National Républicain, claim that the large numbers of immigrants with non-Western European cultural background destabilize France and insist upon a clear danger in Islamist behaviors among the immigrant Muslim population. In the 2004 regional elections, the MNR ran on a "No to Islamization!" platform.

In 2004, the French government expelled several imams of foreign citizenship involved in radical politics. In a few cases, expulsion warrants on the basis of immigration status had already been issued.

A few issues are crystallizing the debate, The hijab issue being the most representative of all.

The hijab issue

See French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools.

The wearing of hijab in France has been a very controversial issue since 1989. The debate essentially concerns whether Muslim girls who choose to wear hijab may do so in public schools. A secondary issue is how to protect the free choice and other rights of young Muslim women who do not want the veil, but who face strong pressure from traditionalist Muslims. Similar issues exist for civil servants and for acceptance of male Muslims medics in medical services.

Traditionalist Muslims believe that the Quran instructs women to keep their heads covered (outside of the immediate family); they argue that it is a form of religious discrimination, not to allow head coverings in school. They believe that this is an attempt to impose secular values on them. However, this belief is not prescribed by the Quran, but only a disputed interpretation of the Hadith.

The French government position, and most public opinion, is opposed to the wearing of an "ostentatious" sign of religious expression (dress or symbol), whatever the religion, as this is incompatible with the French system of laïcité. Mr. Chirac said in December 2003 that it breaches the separation of church and state and would increase tensions in France's multicultural society, whose Muslim and Jewish populations are both the biggest of their kind in west Europe.

Most teachers are highly opposed to the veil, often perceived as one alienating the women. They feel it is their responsibility to insure that girls are not allowed to wear veils, thus protecting those not wearing it, as well as preventing the others of wearing it any more.

The issue of Muslim hijabs has sparked controversy after several girls refused to uncover their heads in class, as early as 1989. In October 1989, three Muslim schoolgirls wearing the Islamic headscarf were expelled from the collège (secondary school) Gabriel-Havez in Creil (north of Paris). In November, the First Conseil d'Etat ruling affirmed that the wearing of the Islamic headscarf, as a symbol of religious expression, in public schools was not incompatible with the French school system and the system of laïcité. In December, a first ministerial circular (circulaire Jospin) was published, stating teachers had to decide on a case-by-case basis whether to ban the wearing of Islamic headscarf.

In January 1990, three schoolgirls were expelled from the collège Pasteur in Noyon, north of Paris. The parents of one expelled schoolgirl filed a defamation action against the school principal of the collège Gabriel-Havez in Creil. As a result, the teachers of a collège in Nantua (eastern part of France, just to the west of Geneva, Switzerland) went on strike to protest the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in school. A second ministerial circular was published in October, to restate the need to respect the principle of laïcité in public schools.

In September 1994, a third ministerial circular (circulaire Bayrou) was published, making a distinction between "discreet" symbols to be tolerated in public schools, and "ostentatious" symbols, including the Islamic headscarf, to be banned from public schools. In October, some students demonstrated at the lycée St. Exupery in Mantes-la-Jolie (northwest of Paris) to support the freedom to wear Islamic headscarves in school. In November, approximately 24 veiled schoolgirls were expelled from the lycée (secondary school) St. Exupery in Mantes-la-Jolie and the lycée Faidherbe in the city of Lille.

Since 1994, around 100 girls have been excluded from French state schools for wearing such veils. In half the cases, courts subsequently overturned the decision.

In December 2003 President Chirac decided that the law should prohibit the wearing of visible religious signs in schools, according to laïcité requirements. The law was approved by parliament in March of 2004. This law (sometimes called the French headscarf law) forbids wearing "ostentatious" signs of religious expression. Items prohibited by this law include Muslim hijabs, Jewish yarmulkes or large Christian crosses. It is still be permissible to wear discreet symbols of faith such as small crosses, Stars of David or Fatima's hands.

A large majority of French people, and in particular teachers, are in favor of this ban. Some religious leaders have showed their opposition. In response to this law, two French journalists working in Iraq, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were taken hostage by the "Islamic Army in Iraq" (an Al-Qaeda–linked group), threatening to kill the two journalsts if the law wasn't revoked. They were later released unharmed. [1]

References

Liberation.com article (French) http://www.liberation.com/page.php?Article=105036
Article in French in Le Monde

See also

Political Islam

Political Islam is quite important in France, and helps to provide social protection, assistance in the immigration process, and cultural integration. Formal as well as informal Muslim organisations help the new French citizens in their process of integration with the culture, who often feel their countries of origin can no longer represent them.

Government efforts toward integration

The government is actively working to formulate an official policy on Islam.

As indicated above, it is difficult to determine in France who may be called a Muslim. Another word often used is arabe, but some mention that not all immigrants from Algeria for example, are Arabs; furthermore, not all Arabs are Muslim. Feelings may be very complex and contradictory, as a person may feel hostility toward a religion, but not toward a person of North African origin. When one talks about Islam, does he intend to refer to Muslims or to Arabs? Is Islam a religion, or is it a more general reference to the background of some people? Similarly, is a "beur" an Arab, a Muslim, an Algerian or an immigrant?

Miscellaneous

As of July 2004, 50% of imprisioned criminals in France are Muslims while Muslims make up approximately 10% of the population. [2]

Islamism in France

Islamism (Islamisme in French) is a term that is rather less used than others, perhaps due to its lack of precision. The following terms are often used : Islamiste (when referring to a person), islamique (for a qualifier, the "hidjab" or foulard islamique, or barbe islamique, the beard), mouvement islamique (to refer to a political movement), mouvement intégriste or mouvement extrémiste (to refer to a fundamentalist group), mouvement terroriste (for a group using violence to achieve its ends).

In countries with Muslim majorities, Islamist movements are essentially political. Olivier Roy calls Islamists those which see in Islam a political ideology, in the modern sense of the term, "ideology". In other words a theory which presumes to entirely understand the social side of a society, in political terms.

Islamists want to influence the laws of States. When using the term Islamiste, Muslims refer almost exclusively to their own specific program to establish an Islamic state. There are many more movements to establish such states than are recognized as Islamist by the West, thus the use is not very uniform.

This is not to say that Islamist groups overtly advocate violent takeover in every political environment, so that they should be seen necessarily as terrorists. Because influence in French politics is possible without resorting to violence, the use of violence in that context is considered counterproductive toward achieving their goal of guiding the political system according to the principles of Islam. However, in Algeria, the situation is different. Events there ultimately affect the posture of Islamists toward France itself, as the hope of bringing about an Islamic state in Algeria is a cause for which some French Islamists are willing to turn to violence.

The political aim of Islamists is ultimately the formal establishment of the Sharia, with modern adaptations at variance from a strictly traditional interpretation or not. Fundamentalism and traditionalism, of themselves, do not have this specific political connotation at all. Islamists are deemed such according to their adherence to the political goal of an Islamic state, rather than by features of their religious observance. Therefore, Islamists may be Fundamentalists, or not.

Islamists characterize their movement as:

a recall to tradition, which in Arabic is called "Sallaf". This is a doctrine from the end of the 19th century, "la Salafia". It may be found in many Islamist mouvements, and in particular in Algeria, in one of the GIA groups (There are several different doctrines in Islamism, and given the variety of the movements, and their varying goals, it is almost always advisable when referring to a specific political movement, to avoid generalizations and refer to it by its name.)

The return to following the laws outlined in the Qur'an ("Coran" in French). Islamists support a revolutionary and political reading of the Qur'an, they criticize the ante-Islamic times ("jahhiliyya"), when the world was populated only with pagans and mecreants.

and especially, Islam as religion and State. This dogma has been adopted, for example, by the djazarist faction of the G.I.A. This is meant to say that the State should ultimately be a Muslim State.

Islamists often portray themselves as a revival movement, a call to Muslims to renew their own adherence to fundamental Islamic religious principles and laws, which initially apply only to Muslims.

History of Islam

Before 1995 (the year several terrorist attacks occurred in France), Islamist terrorism raised in many French people mind the memory of Arab action in the 1960s. However, the real violent actions appeared in the 1970s.

At the beginning of the Seventies, Arab socialism was in crisis, because of economical failure of its policies and cultural dependence from the West.

Once the common opposition to colonialism, corruption and racism was established as a focus, debates on political Islam became generally focused on three core questions through the 1970s:

status of women and integration of priorities of feminism into a renewed fiqh
Islamic economics and the role of debt in oppression and stagnation of Muslim states
Zionism and the capacity of Muslims for self-governance, control of oil revenues, etc.

United Nations cooperation was pivotal in this view - as was cooperation with secular forces and allies. The agenda of secular and Islamist movements during this period was all but indistinguishable. In 1979 the political situation drastically changed, with Egypt making peace with Israel, the Iranian Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - all three events had wide-ranging effects on how Islam was perceived as a political phenomenon.

Some Muslims place the blame for all flaws in Muslim societies on the influx of "foreign" ideas including debt-based capitalism, communism, and even feminism; a return to the principles of Islam is seen as the natural cure. This is however interpreted in very many ways: socialism and Marxism as a guide to adapting Islam to the modern world was in decline by the 1980s as the USSR invaded Afghanistan and polarized attitudes against Communism and other secular variants of socialism. Capitalism was often discredited by plain corruption.

One persistent theme that both proponents and opponents of Islam as a political movement note is that Muslims are actively persecuted by the West and other foreigners. This view is of course not distinguishable from a critique of imperialism including oil imperialism, since many Muslim nations are sitting on relatively vast oil reserves. Colonialism is often identified as the force which is 'against Islam', and seems to neatly encompass British Empire experiences as well as those of modern times - the long Ottoman domination being more or less forgotten.

It was largely through reactive measures that the movement that is labelled Islamist came to be visible to the West, where it was labelled as being a distinct movement from Islam, pan-Arabism and resistance to colonization.

The legitimacy of this kind of distinction is very much in doubt. The French Olivier Roy, a top advisor to French President Jacques Chirac, holds that the primary motive of all of this activity is resistance to colonialism and control of the Islamic World by outsiders. In this view, the movement called Islamist is wholly reactive and incidental, just a convenient rationale used to justify what is in fact resistance of a cultural and economic sort.

However, there are many overt similarities. Those militants who follow a version of shariah based on the classical fiqh ("jurisprudence") as interpreted by local ulema ("jurists"), were the most prominent of several competing trends in modern Islamic philosophy in the 1970s and 1980s.

Attacks in the 1985-1986

13 dead and 250 wounded.

Airbus in 1994

The GIA hijacked Air France Flight 8969 from Algiers in December 1994. The men landed the plane in Marseille to refuel, so that they could fly to Paris and crash it into the Eiffel Tower. French commandos stormed the plane in Marseille and killed the hijackers.

Terrorist attacks in 1995

France underwent a series of Islamist terrorist attacks in 1995, more especially related to Algeria. The first violent islamist movements appeared in Algeria in the 1980/1984 by the emergence of a new mouvement, the M.I.A. (Algerian Islamic movement), led by Mustapha Bouyali. It was dismantled in years 1988/1989. After the dissolution, about 150 people were judged (members of this mouvement, Ali Beladj and Abdelbaki Sahraoui, were assassinated in 1995 in Paris). In October 1988, a large meeting mostly made of students in Algiers lead to between 500 and 600 dead. These events were used by some Islamists who created new parties, such as the F.I.S. in Algeria (1989/1990) then the G.I.A. (leader Mansour Emezziani), reconstructed from the M.I.A. The first violent action of the G.I.A. occurred in 1992 before elections in Algeria. This date is the beginning of many violent actions, which will have repercussions in France, because of the very tight ties between France and Algeria.

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