France’s crackdown on islam
Following the terrorist attack that claimed the life of Samuel Paty, a middle school teacher in a suburb north of Paris, the French government has instated a crackdown on Muslims accused of extremism. Accordingly, they have organised raids and shutdowns of organisation and aid groups. But even prior to recent attacks, President Emmanuel Macron presented his plan to introduce a new French Islam, in order to fight “Islamist separatism”. However, media coverage of the attacks and subsequent responses by American news outlets have puzzled. and even angered. French observers including President Macron.
In an interview with Ben Smith of The New York Times, Macron accused newspapers from countries that share values with France of legitimising the violence of the recent attacks. According to Macron, foreign media struggle with its comprehension of “laïcité” - France’s ideal of secularism whereby the state is free of any influence or control exerted by religious institutions and religion generally. Put into law in 1905, laïcité forces the state to take a neutral stance towards religion, neither supporting it nor banning it. Macron especially took issue with the focus in news coverage which focused on the failures in France’s policies towards its Muslim population instead of anger towards the terrorists and organisations responsible for the attacks. For instance, an opinion article published in The Financial Times entitled “Macron’s war on Islamic separatism only divided France further” was pulled from the publication following reader complaints and a call from Macron’s office. Other articles that have drawn criticism from French observers include a Washington Post analysis that suggests the French government’s efforts to prevent further attacks fails to address the alienation of French Muslims. This, experts generally agree, is a root cause for radicalisation and violence and should be considered, rather than reforming an entire religion. Moreover, another article by The New York Times compared Macron’s comments regarding recent acts of terrorism to that of the Austrian Chancellor. The article highlighted the fact that Chancellor Sebastian Kurz took a more conciliatory approach by emphasising that the enemy does not belong to a religion but rather is extremist and terrorist. Meanwhile, Macron aimed to critique Islamism and separatism.
Macron suggests that there is a misunderstanding of what French society is and how it operates on a universalist model. There is an insistence on not categorising citizens based on various identities but rather reinforcing, first and foremost, their identity as a citizen. This is in contrast with the American ideal of multiculturalism. Understandably, foreign correspondents often have a difficult job of relaying cultural and societal differences and nuances back to their readers but in some ways, Macron is right in pointing out certain inconsistencies in some of the coverage. Blaming France for the terrorist attacks demonstrates flaws in comprehension of the issue at hand. Even more, characterising all efforts in targeting Islamists and other separatists as Islamophobic only serves to lump all Muslims into the same category.
However, foreign journalists, more specifically American ones are well within their right to highlight factors such as discrimination, racism, Islamophobia, poverty and the conditions in the troubled French suburbs which some refer to as “territories lost to the Republic”. Laïcité is meant to protect citizens from oppressive religious powers but more recently has taken on a new interpretation that targets public displays of Islam. For instance, in 2019 a runner’s hijab advertised by French sporting goods brand Decathlon was met with disapproval by the then-health minister Agnès Buzyn. There are blind spots in the way that laïcité is implemented and these actions affect French Muslims. Therefore, journalists should be able to poke at such gaps without having their articles removed from publications.
The issues of radicalisation, separatism and Islamism are complex and need to be reported on with a high degree of precision. Denial, finger-pointing and accusations have no place in the discourse surrounding these subject matters because the goal is ultimately to stop terrorist attacks from occurring and this can only be done through honest, transparent and critical examinations of the state of society.
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