Latest update: 18/04/2011

- France - French politics - Islam - Muslims - religion - secularism

Muslims in France

Islam has become a hot-button issue in France. In this country which is officially secular, the French are increasingly confronted with the following question: what is Islam’s place in France? The debate rages on as the next presidential election gets closer. France 24 went to find out more about the Muslims of France.

REPORTERS

By Rabah ZANOUN

Muslims in France? Or Muslims of France? These two questions aim to understand just who these French citizens are. With the current debate on “laïcité” (France’s particular conception of secularism), plus the law banning the full-face veil in public coming into force, Muslims are making headlines at the moment. I went out there to meet them.

What I discovered was a tense community; people who have had enough of the media and politicians. In order to shoot this report I met various members of the Muslim community. But I also came up against many refusals to be interviewed, due to people being wary of the media. For those I contacted, the press does not show the true nature of Islam. It is true that it is difficult in a 12-minute report to describe a religion which concerns 4 to 6 million people in France, but of whom only 800,000 are practising Muslims. In turn, there are only 2,000 places where they can pray, a third of the number necessary.

What Muslims want today is to be no longer stigmatised and used as political pawns. With this report, mainly filmed in the outlying suburbs of Paris, in Evry and Meaux, I tried to show how being both French and Muslim could sometimes be difficult. Street prayers, a rise in radicalism, and the full-face veil are just some stigma of a religion which in its great majority observes its faith peacefully.

Caught in the middle between ardent defenders of “laïcité”, and political rows, Muslims want to fully exist in the French republic.

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Comments (8)

What is the debate?

by Anonyme - 01/08/2011 - 13:24

Why does a state need to declare itself 'secular?

The total lack of verifiable evidence for that stated by the 'faithful' is so absent, to the extent ALL political, and social life should be 'secular' without the need to self declare it to be so.

When, a seriously doubtful 'when', ANY religious organisation can provide substantive proof of that they rely on for their veracity, then, and only then, must we tolerate the very existence of such organisations.

Until such proof is forthcoming, each and every one of us, either as individuals, or communally as a 'State' need to act in a logical manner demanding that proof.

Failure to provide the verifiable evidence, being the base line on which the individual, and State, must refuse to accept credibility for that professed by those with a religious agenda.

After all the hundreds, thousands of year under which the human race has been subjected to the pressures from religions of all kinds, the time has come, to throw off the shackles that those religions have burdened us all with.

The weight of literature written over millennia by religious scholars is no more valid than the tales of Harry Potter, in that I tend to agree with the Islamic scholars that such modern tales are mind bending, but how those, and others, have the effrontery to castigate real fiction when ALL the output based on the existence of a non verifiable deity is equally as 'fictional', as much a mystery to the intelligent amongst us, as anything springing from a fertile imagination.

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"......Caught in the middle

by Anonyme - 29/07/2011 - 17:21

"......Caught in the middle between ardent defenders of “laïcité”, and political rows, Muslims want to fully exist in the French republic".....

That will not come about until the Muslim becomes less radical, and places his religion, as with the French, and the rest of the Europeans, some way down his list of lifestyle priorities.

As long as he sees his religion as the total basis of how he should live, he will be set aside from the mainstream, and in truth generally ostracised by those he lives amongst.

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GOOD JOB FRANCE!!

by Anonyme - 27/07/2011 - 11:20

BRING YOUR RELIGON TO MY COUNTRY, KEEP YOUR BELIEFS AT HOME! THIS IS OUR COUNTRY, BUILT ON OUR BELIEFS. ONCE PEOPLE GET THE HANG OF THIS, WE WILL STOP GETTING PUSHED AROUND!

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No

by Anonyme - 18/04/2011 - 14:47

So dissapoint on france decision on Hijab...but Allah knows best

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What is an aboriginal's place

by Anonyme - 17/04/2011 - 20:03

What is an aboriginal's place in Canada? we don't go wearing our head dresses in other countries.. unless we are invited and representing... we r kept on the rez... this kinda stuff is getting annoying... if u want it? keep it at home...