Education, secularism, and illiberalism: Marginalisation of Muslims by the French state

Abstract

Laïcité, France’s idiosyncratic principle of secularism, is a unique term that today engenders state forms of illiberalism, especially against marginalised communities in France. French Muslims experience instances of discrimination and ‘othering’ as the state endorses illiberal policies in the name of laïcité. These state acts of symbolic violence transgress political geographies and affect French Muslims’ perceptions of identification, citizenship, and belonging. Building on nine interviews with French Muslim higher education students, this article demonstrates ways in which illiberalism operates in the lives of French Muslim higher education students. It identifies the role of the French secular school in the making of gendered Islamophobia. This article serves as means for better understanding the lived experiences of French Muslims and recognising the socio-political changes that need to be made in France to protect and empower marginalised groups against state illiberalism.

No Country for Muslims? The Invention of an Islam Républicain in France and Its Impact on French Muslims

“…Ménudier 2014). With respect to Goldberg (2006), Hauser (2021 stated "In France, Muslims represent this 'sacrificial stranger' who are seen as needing assimilation to comply with a standard norm of Frenchness deriving from national parochialisms that presume Europeans to be White Christians. Literature has demonstrated that this assimilationist paradigm has a tendency to homogenise Muslim populations-despite their ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity-as a singular outsider who needs to continually assimilate [ .…”