The French anti-racist movement and the 'Muslim Question'

Abstract

First paragraph: It has been suggested that there may be less sympathy for the notion that Muslim minorities are subjected to racism by virtue of their real or perceived ‘Muslimness' than there is for Jewish minorities in Europe. Public anxiety over the ‘Muslim question' leads to hesitancy in naming this phenomenon as ‘anti-Muslim sentiment' or ‘Islamophobia' (Meer and Modood 2009). This situation is clearly in evidence in contemporary France where the ‘Muslim question' has split the anti-racist movement The split is symptomatic of a more general division within the French Left in relation to Islam and Muslims. It has coincided with a series of controversies and debates relating to Muslims in France that began emerging in the year 2000, foremost among them those relating to the adoption of the law on ‘secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools' (also known as the ‘Headscarf Law') in 2004. This was then followed by the ban on face covering in 2010 which aimed to stop Muslim women from wearing either the niqab or burqa in public.