French republican universalism--expressed most strongly in the principle and practice of laïcité--and multiculturalism have constituted opposite poles on questions of citizenship and integration. The report of the Stasi Commission on laïcité on 11 December 2003 and the following legislation on the donning of religious symbols in French public schools have once again, spurred debates over the meanings and practices of laïcité. The report and the law have been interpreted in different ways. Some have presented them as a reaffirmation of a historically constituted laïcité under new circumstances, others as a divergence from the real problems of racism, unemployment and gender inequality. In this article, I offer an alternative reading by supplementing a critical reading of the report with an analysis of its historical and immediate institutional context. I evaluate the Stasi Report in its immediate context of institutional change, and in the historical context of selected developments concerning laïcité since the 1905 law separating churches and State. I argue that the Stasi Report marks a fundamental break with French republican universalism, and I show that this break occurred contemporaneously with key gestures of multiculturalism: the establishment of the French Muslim Council and the creation of Muslim high schools under contract with the French state. This double movement to narrow the boundaries of laïcité, and for the state to expand the boundaries of identity-specific, Muslim public institutions and private schooling constitutes a reorganization of the public sphere in France which qualifies as a move towards multiculturalism.
The debates on laïcité in France have been capped by a claim that French cultural imaginary laïcité has reasserted itself against the ‘new challenge of diversity’, this new challenge explicitly being contrasted to the old challenge of the Catholic Church. There have been plenty of references to the French Third Republic during these debates, yet these references fail to recognise that in fact the concept of diversité was part of the discussions on laïcité during the Third Republic. This is a historical fact that questions the distinction between old and new challenges. This article locates the concept of diversité in the parliamentary deliberations during the making of the ‘Loi du 28 Mars 1882 sur l’enseignement primaire obligatoire’ and the ‘Loi du 9 Décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des églises et de l’État’ and then compares the relations of diversité and laïcité at that time with their relations in contemporary France. The article lays out the move of diversité from a constitutive premise of laïc institutions in the Third Republic to challenging laïcité, and it explores the politics behind this move. I argue that laïcité has not been reasserted but rather has regressed in France.
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