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The 1905 debates, rich in passion and reasoning, are replaced today by pragmatism and politicians substituting for public intellectuals. Jean Baubérot points out the factual errors and serious misinterpretations made by Minister Delegate for Citizenship Marlène Schiappa in her book, Laïcité, point! Shortened deliberation, substituting intellectuals with politicians, factual errors: it looks nothing short of the neoliberal age of France.

Ghettoization was undermining vivre ensemble, the expression that has become the key to laïcité and integration. The president explained, “we can have communities in the French Republic...these belongings should never be considered as subtractions from the Republic.” With separatism, he was referring to the abuse of religion for “building a project of separation from the Republic.” 

A focus on “public neutrality” as the principle of laïcité under challenge overshadows the fact that it is a process of privatization of state enterprises, which changes the boundaries of the public and gives rise to a “problem of neutrality.”

Even if the pandemic has been dominating the news during the last year, it has been coupled with somber headlines. The gruesome murders by radical Islamists of the teacher Samuel Paty, the police employee Stéphanie Monfermé, and many other similar attacks have added fuel to the fire. Public debate was already infected, focusing on the legitimacy of the state in terms of living up to the hard-liner discourses on republican values, notably French secularism, while fighting radical Islamism and separatism, the current buzzword (before it was communitarianism). Navigating these issues, the legislators are faced with the problem of protecting liberal democracy without turning France into an illiberal state. It is safe to say that the perpetual social and political crisis at the nexus of secularism, nationhood, security, migration, and Islam endures. 

While the proposal would surely make life harder for a caricature of a Salafi-jihadi-violence-preaching imam, the measures are far-reaching for the average citizen in terms of civil liberties and freedom of association. As Philippe Portier explains, this project might turn the idea of French civil society on its head. Up until now, according to the Waldeck-Rousseau Law from 1901, “associations were seen as vectors of plurality of life aspirations in civil society.” With this project, however, “the state will turn them into relays of the values it promotes.” Since the state withholds the power to define the values and principles these associations are supposed to withhold, the state can thusly be seen to take a tighter grip on the contours of French civil society. 

One year ahead of the next presidential election, Le Pen has momentum. The hypothesis that crises serve radical political voices was difficult to affirm during the initial phases of the pandemic for Le Pen and her party. She was struggling to find a legitimate oppositional line. However, the government’s difficulty in fighting the spread of the virus and its imposed infringements on public liberties have been politicized by her to argue for the incompetence of the government and for the government’s non-respect for the fundamental values of French citizens while letting Islamic radicals run loose. In a typically populist logic, she creates political divides between the native people, the elites, and the enemies of the people.

Ayari had no ties to terrorist groups. But it soon became clear that his appearance had turned him into a suspect in his own right. He was charged with terrorism, detained for several days, and savagely beaten. “The police officer spat in my face and beat me,” the 29-year-old Ayari told me later. “My face was bruised, my mouth was bleeding. A beard and traditional clothing mean ‘terrorism’ for security forces in Tunisia. That’s the bitter reality.”

“Today there’s a sort of trivialization of torture, especially in terrorism cases,” said Amna Guellali, the Tunisia director of Human Rights Watch. “When we speak up about the torture of terror suspects, we risk being considered traitors in the holy war against terrorism — and if we denounce torture, we’re considered pro-terrorist.”

Inclusion in the terrorism list also prevents people from obtaining copies of their criminal records. Since these have to be included with job applications, this amounts to an employment blacklist as well. This procedure means that hundreds, if not thousands, of Tunisians, most of whom are already from the most vulnerable segments of society, are subject to economic discrimination.

From within the government, however, those who speak the most of Islamo-gauchisme are seldom academics. The real fear is that universities—the prime institutions that give a platform and even legitimacy for new ideas, if not critical thinking—end up legitimizing criticism of the status quo. To publicly speak of the realities of racism, to expose France’s colonial legacy and role in slavery, to question the roman national or official history of France for its white male-centered narrative is way out of line for some.

The emergence of academics from the descendants of slaves and post-colonial immigration is seen as a threat, not as a chance to strengthen French academia in an ever-more globalized world. 

if the French Republic does not recognize race, it does treat people according to their race.