| Summary: | The author of the article looks into the place of Islam in France through the prism of republican values that have formed the modern French state. The civic understanding of a nation has defined the approach to immigrants’ integration in France which is close to assimilation. The French model of citizenship implies membership in the political community through the adoption of republican values, regardless of ethnicity or religion. At the same time, the principle of laïcité en- shrined in the 1905 law, on the one hand, consolidated the Church’s independence from the state and, at the same time, the state’s equidistant attitude towards all religions. On the other hand, it defined that religion strictly belongs to private sphere. The growth in the number of Muslims in the country, both among citizens and due to immigration, raises new questions for the Republic such as to what extent the peaceful existence of a growing Muslim community within a secular state is pos- sible considering that Islam draws no division between public and private life. In the long run it will depend on whether laïcité is understood as an autonomy, rather than the complete exclusion of religion from the public sphere.
|
|---|
