MARSEILLE, France (AP) — France’s unique approach to “laïcité” — loosely translated as “secularism” — which has been thrust into the international spotlight by the ban on headscarves for French athletes at the upcoming Paris Olympics, has country has increasingly caused controversy.
The battle goes to the heart of how France approaches not only the place of religion in public life, but also the integration of its largely immigrant Muslim population, the largest in Western Europe.
Perhaps the most contentious area is public schools, where visible signs of faith are excluded by policies aimed at promoting national unity. This also applies to the headscarves that some Muslim women want to wear out of piety and modesty, while others fight them as a symbol of oppression.
“It has become a privilege to practice our religion,” said Majda Ould Ibbat, who considered leaving Marseille, France’s second-largest city, until she discovered a private Muslim school, Ibn Khaldoun, where her children were both free could live. their faith and flourish academically.
“We wanted them to get a good education, with our principles and our values,” added Ould Ibbat, who only recently started wearing a headscarf, while her teenage daughter Minane did not feel ready.
For Minane, as for many French Muslim youth, navigating French culture and its spiritual identity is becoming increasingly difficult. The 19-year-old nursing student has even heard people say in the streets of multicultural Marseille that there is no place for Muslims.
“I wonder if Islam is accepted in France,” she said.
Minane also lives with the collective trauma that has scarred much of France in the wake of Islamist attacks, which targeted schools and are seen by many as evidence that laïcité (pronounced lah-ee-see-tay) must be strict maintained to prevent radicalization.
Minane vividly remembers a moment of silence at Ibn Khaldoun in honor of Samuel Paty, a public school teacher who was beheaded by a radicalized Islamist in 2020. At the entrance to the Ministry of Education in Paris there is a memorial to Paty as a defender of French values.
For its officials and most teachers, secularism is essential. They say it promotes a sense of belonging to a unified French identity and prevents those who are less or not religiously observant from feeling pressured.
For many French Muslims, however, laïcité puts exactly that kind of discriminatory pressure on already disadvantaged minorities.
Amid the tension, there is broad agreement that polarization is skyrocketing as repression and challenges increase.
“Laïcité laws protect and enable coexistence – which is becoming less and less easy,” says Isabelle Tretola, headmistress of the public primary school opposite Ibn Khaldoun.
She addresses the challenges of secularism every day – such as children in choir class putting their hands over their ears “because their families told them that singing varied songs is not good.”
“You can’t force them to sing, but teachers tell them not to cover their ears out of respect for the instructor and classmates,” Tretola said. “At school you learn the values of the republic.”
Secularism is a fundamental value in the French Constitution. The state explicitly accuses public schools of instilling these values in children, while private schools are allowed to offer religious education as long as they also teach the general curriculum that the government has established.
Government officials argue that the ban on the display of a particular faith is necessary to prevent threats to democracy. The government has made the fight against radical Islam a priority, and secularism is seen as a bulwark against the feared increasing religious influence on daily life, right down to beachwear.
“In a public school, the school for everyone, you behave like everyone else and you are not allowed to make an impression,” said Alain Seksig, secretary general of the Ministry of Education’s Secularism Council.
For many teachers and school principals, having strict government regulations helps them meet increasing challenges.
About 40% of teachers report self-censorship on topics from evolution to sexual health after the attacks on Paty and another teacher, Dominique Bernard, who was killed last fall by a suspected Islamic extremist, said Didier Georges of SNPDEN-UNSA, a union that represents more than 40% of teachers. half of French clients.
Like him, Laurent Le Drezen, director and leader of another union for education workers, SGEN-CFDT, sees a nefarious influence of social media on the growth of Muslim students who challenge secularism at school.
His classroom experience in Marseille’s Quartiers Nord – often run-down suburbs with projects housing mainly families of North African descent – also taught him the importance of showing students that schools don’t come after them because they are Muslim.
At the Cedres Mosque in Marseille, next to the projects, Salah Bariki said that young people are struggling with exactly that feeling of rejection by France.
“What do they want us to do, look at the Eiffel Tower instead of Mecca?” Bariki joked. Nine out of 10 young women in the area are now veiled, “more because of identity than because of religion,” he added.
To avoid a vicious circle, there should be more – not less – discussion about religion in schools, argued Haïm Bendao, rabbi at a Conservative synagogue in a nearby neighborhood.
“Making peace is a daily effort. It is extremely important to speak in schools,” says Bendao, who attended both Ibn Khaldoun and the Catholic school opposite, Saint-Joseph, which also has many Muslim students enrolled.
Several families in Ibn Khaldoun said they chose it because it can support both identities rather than exacerbate all-too-public doubts about whether being Muslim is compatible with being French.
“When I hear the debate about compatibility, I turn off the TV. Fear has invaded the world,” said Nancy Chihane, president of the parent association in Ibn Khaldoun.
During a recent spring break, where girls in hijabs, others with their hair blowing in the wind, and boys all mingled, a high school student wearing a headscarf said that switching to Ibn Khaldoun meant both freedom and community.
“Here we all understand each other, we are not marginalized,” says Asmaa Abdelah (17).
Nouali Yacine, her history and geography teacher, was born in Algeria – which was under French colonial rule until it gained independence in 1962 after a violent struggle – and grew up in France since he was seven months old.
“We belong to the bourgeoisie. We don’t ask that question, they ask us,” says Yacine.
The school’s founder and principal, Mohsen Ngazou, is equally adamant about respecting religious and educational obligations.
He recalls once “making a scene” when he saw a student wearing an abaya over pajamas – student code forbids the latter alongside shorts and revealing necklines.
“I told her she wasn’t ready for class yet,” Ngazou said. “The abaya does not make a woman religious. The most important thing is that you feel good about who you are.”
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Associated Press religion reporting is supported by the AP’s partnership with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
