From Secularism to Public Order: Identity Politics and the Idea of Muslim Solidarity in France

Announced by the University of Pittsburgh

Secularism has been frequently deployed to regulate the behavior of Muslims in postcolonial France. As a result, observers tend to assume that there is an inherent tension between Republican secularism and Muslim piety. Media and scholarly representations often reproduce the preoccupations of political elites, with a focus on headscarves, halal food, and national identity or “feeing French.” However, many young, socially engaged French Muslims contest any simple opposition between Muslim piety and French secularism. They take for granted that Frenchness, including certain forms of secularity, is a part of their moral and cultural inheritance, along with their intergenerational inheritances of colonialism, immigration, and a politics of resistance.

At the same time, French laws and policies related to secularism have shifted in important ways in the past decade, relying increasingly on a new, “immaterial” conception of moral public order, and a thick account of French moral community. Policymakers have sought to manage Muslim collective life and curtail the value and practice of Muslim solidarity. This talk explores how and why the idea of “Muslim community” has become an object of increasing surveillance under the aegis of “moral public order,” resulting in the closure of hundreds of sites of gathering, the deportation of lawful residents without any criminal charges, and the imposition of a “Republican contract” on community organizations. We will see how French Muslims have been responding to this political landscape – how they maintain investment in collective life, build allies through a “convergence of struggles,” and remain oriented towards possible futures.