On Laïcité

<div class="post-content"> <div class="fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling" style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);background-position: center center;background-repeat: no-repeat;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px;border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0px;border-color:#eae9e9;border-style:solid;"><div class="fusion-builder-row fusion-row"><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-1" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><div class="fusion-text"> <h4 class="entry-title fusion-post-title fusion-responsive-typography-calculated" data-fontsize="18" data-lineheight="23.94px" style="--fontSize: 18; line-height: 1.33; --minFontSize: 18;"><em style="font-size: 16px;"><strong>In this piece Aissam Ait Yahya – main author of France’s NAWA publishing house, recently dissolved by government decree – dissects the roots and realities of France’s principle of ‘Laïcité’ (secularism). </strong></em></h4> <h4 class="entry-title fusion-post-title fusion-responsive-typography-calculated" data-fontsize="18" data-lineheight="23.94px" style="--fontSize: 18; line-height: 1.33; --minFontSize: 18;"><em style="font-size: 16px;"><strong>He argues that its anti-religious character is fundamental, such that </strong></em><em style="font-size: 16px;"><strong>Muslims in France cannot repurpose it to defend themselves from the French state’s current attacks on them. </strong></em><em style="font-size: 16px;"><strong>Aissam’s words are a pertinent reflection as the current French government’s mobilisation of </strong></em><em><strong>Laïcite in opposition to ‘Islamist separatism’ reaches</strong></em><em style="font-size: 16px;"><strong> the levels of a <a href="https://www.cage.ngo/we-are-beginning-to-spread-terror-report">Persecution</a>. </strong><br> </em></h4> </div> <h5 data-fontsize="16" style="--fontSize: 16; line-height: 1.13; --minFontSize: 16;" data-lineheight="18.08px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"><em>This article is published as part of CAGE’s new series of expert essays ‘<a href="http://cage.ngo/perspectives">Perspectives on the War On Terror</a>‘.</em></h5> <h4 data-fontsize="18" style="--fontSize: 18; line-height: 1.33; --minFontSize: 18;" data-lineheight="23.94px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"></h4> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-2 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling" style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);background-position: center center;background-repeat: no-repeat;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px;border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0px;border-color:#eae9e9;border-style:solid;"><div class="fusion-builder-row fusion-row"><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-1 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-2" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><h3 style="text-align: center; --fontSize: 26; line-height: 1.62;" data-fontsize="26" data-lineheight="42.12px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"><b>Between philosophy, history and ideology</b></h3> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-3" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>In the legitimate struggle to defend the rights and freedoms of Muslims in France, certain postures, very often naïve – consisting of adopting the conformist forms of French republican discours, particularly that imposed by the media and dominant thought – can condemn one to a strategic impasse and serious inconsistencies that can harm this cause.</p> <p>However a large part of these difficulties arise from gaps and pitfalls in the mastery of the French political language which revolves around Islam and Muslims.</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-2 fusion_builder_column_2_3 2_3 fusion-two-third fusion-column-first" style="width:66.666666666667%;width:calc(66.666666666667% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.66666666666667 ) );margin-right: 4%;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-4" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>To understand the implicit ideological and philosophical underpinnings, or the unconscious meaning of words, that the official republican discourse sometimes implies – or as it is understood and invoked by some of our opponents – is an absolute necessity in order to be able to avoid its traps and to develop a relevant militant consciousness in tune with French realities.</p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-5" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>This is possible by mastering the language: from its origins to its current forms.</p> <p>Among the multitude of these notions, <i>Laïcité</i> will allow us to better understand the current ambiguities of the republican discourse concerning certain minorities and how these can become double-edged political weapons…</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-3 fusion_builder_column_1_3 1_3 fusion-one-third fusion-column-last" style="width:33.333333333333%;width:calc(33.333333333333% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.33333333333333 ) );margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-6" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><h3 style="text-align: center; --fontSize: 26; line-height: 1.62;" data-fontsize="26" data-lineheight="42.12px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"><span style="color: #999999;"><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Despite what is said about it, it is obvious that French Laïcité has an anti-religious component, beyond the simple anticlerical connotation that some republican historians try to give it.<br> “</span></em></span></h3> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-4 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position:left top;background-repeat:no-repeat;-webkit-background-size:cover;-moz-background-size:cover;-o-background-size:cover;background-size:cover;padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;"><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-3 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling" style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);background-position: center center;background-repeat: no-repeat;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px;border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0px;border-color:#eae9e9;border-style:solid;"><div class="fusion-builder-row fusion-row"><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-5 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-7" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><h3 style="text-align: center; --fontSize: 26; line-height: 1.62;" data-fontsize="26" data-lineheight="42.12px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"><b>On Laïcité</b></h3> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-8" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>We are going to address the domain of the Sacred and the very heart of the Republic’s religion.</p> <p>It must be said that a certain ignorance reigns around this “cardinal” principle in France. Origin, form, use and principle: the confusion seems to be maintained even by public authorities and various official actors. All the more so since the less the historical, legal and ideological reality of Laïcité is known, the easier it is to make it say what one wishes, and to apply it where it should not be applied.</p> <p>But the worst thing is that French Muslims adopt extremely naïve positions that aggravate the weak culture towards this polymorphous notion.</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-6 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-9" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>The slogans “<i>Laïcité we love you</i>” or “<i>Laïcité protect us!</i>” seen and heard in various demonstrations against Islamophobia are obviously the sad caricatures of a perverse system of self-flagellation where some believe they have the (salutary) obligation to shout an unwavering attachment to a principle that has since 1989 been used&nbsp; against them in order to restrict their Rights and Freedoms…</p> <p>The whole notion was supposed to be (according to them) the pledge of a good citizenship in the inquisitive eyes of the State and French society.</p> <p>The principle of Laïcité is unique to the French political framework.</p> <p>If all Western countries have experienced secularisation and a certain form of laici-sation, very few (if not exclusively France) have led to <i>Laïcité</i>.</p> <p>This being said, I will not recall here the Christian origin of Laïcité: a whole series of scientific works have largely demonstrated that this idea could only emerge in a land of Christian tradition, culture and history.</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-7 fusion_builder_column_1_3 1_3 fusion-one-third fusion-column-first" style="width:33.333333333333%;width:calc(33.333333333333% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.33333333333333 ) );margin-right: 4%;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-10" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><h3 style="text-align: center; --fontSize: 26; line-height: 1.62;" data-fontsize="26" data-lineheight="42.12px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"><span style="color: #999999;"><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">“It was not until France’s Third Republic that Laïcité really appeared as an ideological principle, and it was in 1871 that the term first appeared. Liberal, moderate and socialist Republicans used it as a weapon in their fight against Catholics and the Church”</span></em></span></h3> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-8 fusion_builder_column_2_3 2_3 fusion-two-third fusion-column-last" style="width:66.666666666667%;width:calc(66.666666666667% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.66666666666667 ) );margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-11" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>Despite what is said about it, it is obvious that French Laïcité has an anti-religious component, beyond the simple anticlerical connotation that some republican historians try to give it.</p> <p>This only insofar as, from the outset, it sought to control and then erase religion from the public sphere, to secularise consciences, and to control the expression of religion in a French society that was still very Catholic until the end of the 19th century.</p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-12" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>Moreover the de-Christianisation, in revolutionary France, began only after having adopted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) by forcing the priests to take an oath of allegiance to the Nation and to the Law rather than to the Church, to the Pope and to God (<i>250 years later, it is to be feared that the French imams or simple Muslims, who do not belong to any Clergy nor to any Church, will be the object of a comparable measure…</i>).</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-9 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-13" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>However, it was not until the Third Republic that Laïcité really appeared: before, it was only a vague idea arising from several sources and phenomena, but from then on it became an ideological principle, and it was in 1871 that the term appeared for the first time. Liberal, moderate and socialist Republicans used it as a weapon in their fight against Catholics and the Church.</p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-14" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>Officially, it was about fighting to preserve the Republic and Democracy, to guarantee the neutrality of the State and the equality of all before its Laws, to ensure individual freedoms, of belief, of conscience and of worship, to free society from the obscurantism of the Church – seen as a dangerous and rival institution, whose conservative ideas went against Modernity, Progress, Reason and Science.</p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-15" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>Thus, the school was the first institution to be secularised with the Ferry laws (1882) by eliminating religious content in education and religious people from the teaching staff.</p> <p>But unofficially, there was a will to reduce and even abolish traditional religion (in this case Catholic), to promote a certain form of atheism, or to create a new religious philosophy: a secular humanist faith in full phase with the Modernity of the time and its utopias.</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-4 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling" style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);background-position: center center;background-repeat: no-repeat;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px;border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0px;border-color:#eae9e9;border-style:solid;"><div class="fusion-builder-row fusion-row"><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-10 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-16" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><h3 style="text-align: center; --fontSize: 26; line-height: 1.62;" data-fontsize="26" data-lineheight="42.12px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"><b>The many faces of Laïcité</b></h3> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-17" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>So there is indeed a double discourse and a double vision of Laïcité that appears; one could speak here of “taqiya” of these republicans who publicly speak of tolerance but in reality desire to create a form of secular religion in all points compatible with the Republic.</p> <p>Thus, whether it was Jules Ferry who admitted that “<i>If we promised religious neutrality, we did not promise philosophical neutrality, nor political neutrality</i>” or René Viviani who confirmed that “<i>Neutrality was always a lie. We have never had any other aim than to make a university anti-religious […] in an active, militant, bellicose way… We have committed ourselves to a work of irreligion, we have torn the human conscience away from belief.&nbsp;</i></p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-18" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p><i>A </i>large number of the founding fathers of French Laïcité knew that from the outset “<i>The aim of the secular school is not to teach people to read, write and count, it is to make free thinkers. The secular school will only have borne fruit if the child is detached from dogma, if he has renounced the faith of his fathers… The secular school is a mould in which a Christian’s son is thrown and from which a renegade escapes.&nbsp;</i></p> <p>The fight against Religion is thus well and truly covered within Laïcité – defined as simple ‘neutrality’.</p> <p>However, alongside these hardliners, there are pragmatic or more liberal Republicans, and therefore followers of a more liberal Laïcité (some today call it “open” or “inclusive”)</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-11 fusion_builder_column_2_3 2_3 fusion-two-third fusion-column-first" style="width:66.666666666667%;width:calc(66.666666666667% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.66666666666667 ) );margin-right: 4%;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-19" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>And precisely, at the beginning of the 20th century, faced with the urgent need for all republicans to legislate definitively on the status of the Church and the role of the State with regard to religions, these two political positions were to clash over the degree of Laïcité to be applied.</p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-20" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>That of Maurice Allard, an assumed hardliner, which aims only at “<i>reducing the evil of the Church and religions… that religion becomes something abnormal… to dechristianize the country…</i>” and that of Aristide Briand “<i>freedom of conscience is inseparable from the faculty, from the right of the faithful to freely express their religious feelings in the form of worship</i>….” .</p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-21" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>In the end, in this passionate debate, it was the liberal and neutral vision that sought national unity and conciliation with Catholics (and religions) that finally prevailed in 1905: “<i>The law we have made is indeed a law of liberty that will do honor to the Republic…</i>”</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-12 fusion_builder_column_1_3 1_3 fusion-one-third fusion-column-last" style="width:33.333333333333%;width:calc(33.333333333333% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.33333333333333 ) );margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-22" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><h3 style="text-align: center; --fontSize: 26; line-height: 1.62;" data-fontsize="26" data-lineheight="42.12px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"><span style="color: #999999;"><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">“As it is currently promoted and dangerously understood, we could say that Laïcité has the defects of the old Catholicism (intolerance), of the State of the Old Regime (absolutism) and of the secular ideologies born in the 19th century (totalitarianism).”</span></em></span></h3> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-13 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-23" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>Thus Laïcité remained at first within a moderate framework, it is synonymous here with the neutrality of the state and its institutions (<i>legal persons</i>). Let us specify that originally it is obviously exclusively the State which is neutral or <i>laic </i>and not its citizens, even if the civil servants in the exercise of their public mission must show a strict neutrality, indifference and impartiality in front of the religious fact.</p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-24" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>This important nuance is very important to remember because Laïcité is also a philosophy, an ideology, and everyone is free to adhere to it or not, everyone is free to claim to be laic or not (<i>Ferdinand Buisson spoke of “secular faith” showing the religious feverishness of this principle…), </i>to believe in the excellence of this model or even to criticise it, to believe in the excellence of this model or even to criticise it: this is part of the fundamental freedoms laid down by The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.</p> <p>Moreover, as we have seen, Laïcité has different degrees and levels that are defined according to the political game and political interests: hence the current cacophony where each can defend his own vision of Laïcité.</p> <p>But on the other hand Laïcité is also a legal principle and here all are obliged to submit to it when it is in its field of application under penalty of infringement: and there again it is the Legislator who defines, directs the fields of application.</p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-25" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>It is this ambiguity – to which is added the two-faced nature of Laïcité – that Muslims, like the whole of French society, do not manage to grasp or to delimit.</p> <p>It seems that the State and public authorities, politicians, intellectuals and the media are seriously maintaining this double confusion which is doubly damaging to us. Not only are we all required to claim to be laic and to adhere morally to Laïcité but moreover Laïcité is increasingly understood as having to combat any expression of religion in the public space (worse when “public” is understood as the domain of the State!).</p> <p>This is legally and juridically false.</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-5 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling" style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);background-position: center center;background-repeat: no-repeat;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px;border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0px;border-color:#eae9e9;border-style:solid;"><div class="fusion-builder-row fusion-row"><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-14 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-26" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><h3 style="text-align: center; --fontSize: 26; line-height: 1.62;" data-fontsize="26" data-lineheight="42.12px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"><b>Laïcité Today</b></h3> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-27" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>Since 1989, we have clearly seen the revival of a Laïcité of a combative and anti-religious character (that of pre-1905), due to the increasingly visible presence of French citizens practicing Islam, its rites, and showing signs of Muslim religiosity in the public space.</p> <p>This Laïcité is no longer satisfied with its original legal framework: in 2004, by prohibiting hijab in schools, France was already extrapolating the law of 1905 which only provided for the neutrality of the state and its institutions, and not the neutrality (forced secularisation) of its users (schoolchildren) who are not however assimilated to civil servants.</p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-28" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>Even today, Laïcité seeks to apply itself everywhere to eliminate any trace of (Muslim) religion, no longer distinguishing between public space and private sphere, even trying to legislate and influence the private sector! Nothing is spared: individuals (accompanying mothers) or institutions (universities).</p> <p>This Laïcité as the unofficial religion of the Republic is now seeking to become the official religion of the citizens: to control consciences, to flush out heretics, to impose itself as a dogma, to subdue all spaces – even the deepest and most intimate convictions.</p> <p>So much so that the few French individuals who still publicly defend the liberal spirit of secularism are accused of being agents of the vast “Islamic conspiracy”.</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-15 fusion_builder_column_1_3 1_3 fusion-one-third fusion-column-first" style="width:33.333333333333%;width:calc(33.333333333333% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.33333333333333 ) );margin-right: 4%;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-29" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><h3 style="text-align: center; --fontSize: 26; line-height: 1.62;" data-fontsize="26" data-lineheight="42.12px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"><span style="color: #999999;"><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">“This Laïcité is now seeking to become the official religion of the citizens: to control consciences, to flush out heretics, to impose itself as a dogma, to subdue all spaces – even the deepest and most intimate convictions.</span></em></span></h3> <h3 style="text-align: center; --fontSize: 26; line-height: 1.62;" data-fontsize="26" data-lineheight="42.12px" class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated"><span style="color: #999999;"><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">So much so that the few French individuals who still publicly defend the liberal spirit of secularism are accused of being agents of the vast “Islamic conspiracy”.<br> “</span></em></span></h3> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-16 fusion_builder_column_2_3 2_3 fusion-two-third fusion-column-last" style="width:66.666666666667%;width:calc(66.666666666667% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.66666666666667 ) );margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-30" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>As it is currently promoted and dangerously understood – and if we remember its distant forms, its unassumed religious impulses – we could say that Laïcité has the defects of the old Catholicism (intolerance), of the State of the Old Regime (absolutism) and of the secular ideologies born in the 19th century (totalitarianism).</p> <p>Intolerant, absolutist, totalitarian and tyrannical?</p> <p>This is perhaps the horizon of a future French Laïcité, which would no longer be of&nbsp; variable geometry, but which could easily evolve towards a more extremist model in a democracy as breathless as ours.</p> <p>Moreover the various questions and proposals made during the debates on Islam in France regularly propose to rework the 1905 law to adapt it to the presence of Islam and Muslims in France.</p> <p>It is therefore difficult to ask a Laïcité that has become feverish, subject to political and populist definitions, and already expansive for more than 30 years, to continue to protect us.</p> <p>We have lost Laïcité, because the State is less and less neutral with its own “religion”.</p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-17 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-31" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p>We must now mobilise behind the only political notion that still has meaning: Freedom. And ask ourselves if France is really a country where citizens are free as the The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proclaims.</p> <p>It is perhaps only by consciously mobilising the resources offered by the principle of Freedom in the defense of our Muslim identity that the State itself will remobilise a liberal Laïcité in a will of conciliation.</p> </div><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-32" style="transform:translate3d(0,0,0);"><p><em>This article is a translation of an article originally published on the Collective to Counter Islamophobia in France (CCIF) website in 2020, shortly before its dissolution.</em></p> </div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-6 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling" style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);background-position: center center;background-repeat: no-repeat;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px;border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0px;border-color:#eae9e9;border-style:solid;"><div class="fusion-builder-row fusion-row"><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-18 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="background-position: left top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247); padding: 0px; min-height: 0px;"><div class="fusion-person person fusion-person-center fusion-person-1 fusion-person-icon-top"><style>.fusion-person-1 .imageframe-liftup:before{-webkit-border-radius:50%;-moz-border-radius:50%;border-radius:50%;</style><div class="person-desc" style="background-color:#f7f7f7;padding:40px;margin-top:0;"><div class="person-author"><div class="person-author-wrapper"><span class="person-name">Aissam Ait Yahya</span><span class="person-title"></span></div></div><div class="person-content fusion-clearfix">Aissam Ait Yahya is a French Muslim author, specialised in Political Philosophy and History.<p></p> <p>He was the main author of the NAWA Publishing House dissolved by the French government in September 2021. </p></div></div></div><div class="fusion-clearfix"></div></div></div></div></div> <p style="font-size:11px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-top:100px">(NOTE: CAGE represents cases of individuals based on the remit of our work. Supporting a case does not mean we agree with the views or actions of the individual. Content published on CAGE may not reflect the official position of our organisation.)</p> </div>