Governing Islam in a Country of Laïcité: Mosques, Public Space, and Halal Food in France

Abstract

I argue here that in French political discourse, the term laïcité works as what W. B. Gallie has called an “essentially contested concept”, and that consequently we should study its strategic uses in specific debates rather than treating it as a neutral analytic concept. I then develop the argument that the term laïcité marks a history of governance involving both control and support of religious institutions, not a simple separation, and I focus on the case of Islam. In what follows, I examine the negotiations between state actors and their Muslim interlocutors concerning ways to meet policy goals without violating sensibilities of laïcité. In some cases, such as schools and mosques, these negotiations rest on a legal distinction between a cultural or educational association (and which draws on the importance of associational life noted by Tocqueville) and a religious one. Central to these policy debates are arguments about public space. The careful nesting of public and private spaces in certain cemeteries provides a detailed example, as does the state’s delegation of authority to the three “great mosques” of France regarding religious sacrifice, the licensing of approved sacrificers, and the marketing of foods as halal.