Picture courtesy of Nanda Gonzague, the photographer who worked with me on a 2015 report on Muslim mothers campaigning for an end to the ghettoisation of education in Montpellier. See more of his photography at http://www.nanda-gonzague.com/
In case you wondered why news reports about France often contain no obvious official input, this may help.The article that follows, an updated look at France’s perpetual struggle to understand and assimilate its large Muslim minority, cried out for a comment from the Élysée. There is none.
When I think of President Emmanuel Macron’s service presse - the first of those two words being a little Parisian joke - I imagine a bustling team of earnest, educated young fonctionnaires or perhaps graduates of the sort of grand public relations colleges you see in the smarter arrondissements. I don’t know for sure, though, because I have so rarely managed to have a meaningful exchange or conversation with anybody there. What, I keep wondering, do they actually do?
In 16 years on (mostly) and off, I can recall a few invitations to the Élysée (merci), lots of requests to put my questions in e-mails and not a single response or hint of guidance. For this article, I got as close as an exasperated ´je suis complètement débordée (I’m swamped)’ and, miraculously, a returned phone call when I followed la débordée’s instructions to write. Unfortunately the line went dead immediately when I answered and, despite my follow-up call and e-mail, that was that ....
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In one corner, some French Muslims say they are seen as unwelcome aliens and seethe with resentment as they wonder what place France has for them.
In the other are non-Muslims fearing they will one day be outnumbered by people with roots in the Maghreb, Middle East or sub-Saharan Africa and intent on sweeping away values they hold dear.
Because both groups make so much noise, metaphorically and literally, rather less is heard from the large number of people who, whatever their faith (if any), are content to get along together and make the best of their lives.
These are the men and women, open to reasoned argument, whom French President Emmanuel Macron hoped to reach with his unequivocal declaration while visiting Cote d’Ivoire in December that colonialism was a “grave mistake”.
It was a gesture immigrants from France’s former possessions might appreciate and any decent native French citizen could acknowledge.
France has the West’s largest Muslim population. Because of its secular laws, no official figure exists.
A 2017 study by the Pew Research Centre put the number at 5.7 million, nearly nine per cent of the population, compared with 3.4 million -- 1.1 . per cent -- in the United States.
Islam is France’s second religion; only Catholicism has more professed believers but the legacy of the colonialism a modern president calls a “crime against humanity” and much mutual suspicion have, for decades, stood in the way of Muslims being fully assimilated. In many banlieues, urban suburbs where immigrant families have traditionally settled, it can feel as if France has parallel societies.
Some right-wing analysts even press the case for formal separation.
It is difficult to believe seven years have passed since Manuel Valls, then France’s socialist interior minister and later prime minister, said in Morocco: “The time of the French government’s use of Islam for political purposes is over.”
Not even the most positive assessment would suggest the message has been heeded.
While some statements by French political leaders directly or indirectly concerning Islam take account of Muslim sensibilities -- Macron’s mea culpa on behalf of France in Abidjan was one example -- many more seem calculated to appease conservatives.
Reflecting on Macron’s crushing victory with 66 per cent of the vote in the 2017 presidential election, some observers conveniently forget that no fewer than 10.6 million French people supported his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen.
She remains Macron’s chief political threat and if another presidential run-off might still return him to office, he knows he cannot afford to ignore concerns about immigration and Islam that she so ruthlessly exploits.
The decision to deploy additional troops to the Sahel, an African region comprising Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Mauritania, is presented as a response to a rising jihadist threat but on the streets of the Malian capital, Bamako, cries of vive la France have been replaced by “France get out".
For many in the Sahel, France’s tendency to play international gendarme reveals that, for all Macron’s noble words, including his assertion that military involvement occurs only at a country’s request, the post-colonial strategy of France-Afrique is alive and as committed as ever to preserving what remains of French influence.
What happens in the former colonies resonates in France, simultaneously reinforcing populist right-wing prejudice while fuelling feelings of estrangement even among those with roots there.
Leaving aside the terrorist atrocities that will doubtless continue to strike terror and inflict death, Macron’s stated desire to guide or enforce radical changes to how Islam is organised, ensuring practice of the religion is compatible with republican values, lies at the heart of France’s problems in coming to terms with its Muslim minority.
First promised by the president in early 2018, detailed proposals are still awaited.
Macron has undoubtedly been preoccupied by the yellow vests movement and massive disruption to life -- especially in Paris -- caused by strikes against planned reform of an antiquated and unsustainable pension system.
However, his failure to deliver is beginning to look as damaging as the widespread anger among Muslims who feel that he is trying to meddle in their religion.
The danger is that energy devoted to preventing radicalisation of disaffected Muslims is wasted if the state is seen as doing too little to help or too much to control.
Most in France would probably settle for the assessment of Thomas Guenole, a left-wing academic, who said the Islamist threat is wildly exaggerated.
He argued that reliable research shows only about one-quarter of French Muslims reject the republic, the majority being either “not really religious or religious but also integrated.”
At the back of their minds, however, will always be the disturbing prognosis of Gerard Collomb, after resigning as Macron’s interior minister 15 months ago: “We live side by side. I fear that tomorrow it will be face to face.”
<em>* this article appears in The Arab Weekly, the editor of which consents to my work being reproduced here </em>
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