FRANCE NEVER TIRES OF LOSING THE lONG wAR:

As with every other episode in France's long history of constructing and managing racial and religious difference, the current measures are animated by a paranoia over "communalist" identity politics and "separatism" from the national body. Most often associated with ethnic enclaves or identity politics, "communalism" and "separatism" increasingly apply to all ethnically and religiously specific organizations, and to patterns of socialization within ethnic and religious groups. However, these terms never apply to the exclusive enclaves of the white or wealthy. This is in spite of the fact that research by demographer Patrick Simon has shown that on the whole, immigrants and their descendants are considerably more likely than the white French population to have close relationships with people of other races and ethnicities -- it is the white French who are most likely to socialize exclusively with members of their own race. Communalism and separatism are terms of moral panic that serve to stigmatize and criminalize any space of gathering or shared consciousness among France's non-white populations, Muslims in particular.

The idea of "communalism" presupposes a coherent "Muslim community" in France that competes with the national community for loyalty. As sociologists Marwan Mohamed and Julien Talpin put it, "Elected officials and state institutions bring 'communities' into existence in order to better control them." Politicians constantly invoke the idea of a coherent "Muslim community" as a social problem in order to justify policies that aim to repress solidarity among Muslims and other communities of color.

The state does not, of course, have a monopoly on the idea of Muslim community. Many Muslims seek to build robust communities on their own terms. These collectives, including charities and consciousness-raising organizations as well as mosques, draw on the moral inheritance of fraternity and solidarity that is prominent in both republican and Islamic ethical traditions. The state perceives them as a threat precisely because they offer dynamic and visible alternatives to the state's construction of "the Muslim community" as a homogenous and closed separatist movement. Community organizations like Lallab and Front de Mères highlight the intersection of gendered Islamophobia with other forms of discrimination, and they lead grassroots resistance efforts against the surveillance of Muslim, Arab, and Black people in France.

The civil society organizations that have been shut down over the past six months consistently articulated their work in terms of republican values: liberty, equality, and fraternity. For example, the French Collective Against Islamophobia (CCIF) gave free legal support to Muslims who were victims of violence and discrimination, defending civil liberties and equality before the law. The charity BarakaCity expressed the French value of fraternity through service to unhoused populations, refugees, and people in poverty around the world. Both were broad, multi-ethnic organizations that served populations in need regardless of their religious affiliation. The state perceived these organizations as threats to "republican principles" even though the organizations were motivated by these very principles. It was their success and their grassroots legitimacy, rather than any particular feature of their activities, that put CCIF and BarakaCity at the top of the list of places to which the state wanted to "send a message." While the CCIF is working to reestablish itself in Europe, its operations in France are severely curtailed.

On February 16, 2021, the National Assembly passed a law "against separatism and for Republican principles," currently being amended by the Senate. The law is the centerpiece of the state's response to the murder of Samuel Paty. This impending law, widely known as the "separatism law," targets Muslims in the name of rooting out "withdrawal into one's community." The "separatism law" tightens the web of penalization around mosques, Islamic schools, charities, and community centers that are made up of or serve largely Muslim populations -- the very institutions that enact the values of fraternity and solidarity on the local level.

The most publicized provisions of the law include those regulating homeschooling, banning "virginity tests," and the amendment added by the Senate that would disallow minors from wearing the headscarf, although this particular measure is unlikely to pass the National Assembly. These provisions invoke longstanding fears about Muslim families that animate the law, implying that children in "separatist" Muslim contexts are miseducated at home, that Muslim parents overly police young girls' sexuality, and that Muslim girls are forced to wear the headscarf against their will.

The more technical provisions of the law have received less media attention, and yet this is where the law may have its greatest impact, revising the laws of 1901 and 1905 that regulate cultural and religious associations, under the heading of "Reinforcing the preservation of public order." These associations will be required to submit to a government review of their bank accounts, and must declare all donations from non-French individuals or organizations for government approval. Religious and cultural organizations can be closed, temporarily or permanently, if they are deemed to host "discourse, ideas, theories, or activities that provoke hate or violence, or justify or encourage hate or violence." The bill does not name the breadth of what might fall under "ideas or theories that provoke, justify, or encourage hate." People who gather together in spite of of such closures face a 7500 euro fine and 6 months in prison.

A "pact" for "public order"

On January 18, 2021, the French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM) presented a "Charter of Principles for French Islam" to President Macron. This charter, solicited by the state, is intended by Macron to be the foundational document for the planned National Council of Imams, a state-run certification body for religious professionals. The CFCM is itself the product of an earlier wave of efforts at state management of Muslim populations. Founded by then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy in 2003, the CFCM is the outcome of the French government's desire to have an "official" Muslim interlocutor as a means of regulating religious practices and defining an authorized "French Islam." This project dates back at least to the 1980s, and continues the colonial management of North African populations through religion. The CFCM has little to no legitimacy among the majority of Muslims in France, whatever their relationship to religion. Most see it as an organ of the state, a bureaucratic arm for France's "Muslim policies."

The "Charter of Principles for French Islam" is organized through a fundamental division between the "national community" and the "Muslims of France." It claims that "from a religious and ethical point of view, Muslims, whether citizens or foreign residents, are linked to France by a pact. This pact obliges them to respect national cohesion, public order, and the laws of the Republic." The "pact" entails specific obligations on Muslims, and on Muslim clergy in particular, who are called to enter into this relationship with the state precisely "from a religious point of view," in flagrant violation of the principle of secularism. The charter binds its signatories to "commit not to use, nor to allow others to use, Islam or the concept of umma (community of believers) with a political lens, whether local, national, or in the interests of a political agenda dictated by a foreign power."

Both the charter of principles itself and its language of a "pact" to "respect national cohesion and public order" echo the famous Clerical Oath of Revolutionary France. In 1790, the government decreed that all members of the Catholic clergy swear a public loyalty oath to the Republic, establishing the primacy of their allegiance to the state before their religious convictions. This idea of a hierarchy of commitments, with one's role as citizen always paramount, has been a hallmark of the French approach to religion since the Revolutionary era -- long before the elaboration of state secularism at the dawn of the twentieth century. It has also been a persistent theme in France's management of Islam and Muslims. The Charter of Principles for French Islam, as a prelude to Macron's planned "Council of Imams," is a clerical oath for the 21st century, demanding that religious officials as religious officials publicly avow their loyalty to public order, which their vocation is presumed to threaten. In response, a few prominent French imams are stepping down from their positions in protest.

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