Between Society and Community: Muslims in Britain and France Today

Abstract

The long-term settlement in north-western Europe of people from Muslim countries is one of the most important phenomena of the last quarter of the twentieth century. In an unprecedented way it forms a central element of the demographic and cultural changes taking place in the Old Continent, and as yet no-one can foresee the precise consequences. Some, who have a monolithic view of these populations, believe that Islam is now established in a continent which it will in time conquer by means of a birth-ratejihad, thanks to the fertility and the youth of its followers, in the context of an ageing Europe in demographic decline. Others denounce such predictions as racism and xenophobia; they see Islam as one of the peacefully coexisting components of tomorrow's multicultural Europe, the symbol of modernity bringing Europe closer to the model of the United States, where blacks, Iatinos and Asians lay claim to their own specific racial and cultural identity, or at least such is the perception. A third group denies that the variable 'Muslim' has any significance; instead, the problem posed by the populations concerned is linked exclusively with their temporary inferior social situation, just as for example Italian or Polish immigrants met xenophobic exclusion in inter-war France. These three widely-aired viewpoints about the presence of Muslims in Europe fall down mainly because they are based on a considerable degree of ignorance of the concrete situation experienced by the populations in question. Although the Muslim populations in Europe have a certain number of features in common, there are also many differences between them. If we look at France and Britain, the two major north-western European states with the greatest number of Muslims, we can observe significant dissimilarities arising from two sets of factors. First, each country's traditional relationship with its settled immigrant populations (intersecting with the legacy of colonial practice) has pre-constructed a social model of recepr tion (and rejection) which is specific to that society and which the Muslim populations have had to face. On the other hand, the internal structure of these populations and in each case the groups which have achieved overall authority in the expression of their identity and determined the dominant strategy with regard to the surrounding society are not identical in the two countries. In comparing the situation in France and Britain we will observe how the confiictual link