Read moreEmmanuel Macron during a visit to the commemorative exhibition of the centenary of the Great Mosque of Paris, in Paris, October 19, 2022. LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP With La République autoritaire (Le Bord de l'eau, 2022), the lecturer at Sciences Po Lyon Haoues Seniguer has chosen a deliberately controversial title. But it is a fundamental question that this political scientist, specialist in Moroccan Islamism and the relationship between Islam and politics in France, explores with meticulousness. The author of The (Neo) Muslim Brotherhood and the New Capitalist Spirit. Between moral rigorism, cryptocapitalism and anticapitalism (Le Bord de l'eau, 2019) and Islamism decrypted (L'Harmattan, 2020) questions the shift that began following the 2015 attacks, which saw the Muslim community, according to him, ostracized by the public authorities. Without denying "the reality of violent extremism practiced in the name of Islam", he deplores the emergence, at the top of the State, of a "dangerous vision postulating a continuum between religious conservatism and violent actions". The executive is currently restructuring the representation of Islam in France around a new body launched in early 2022, the Forum for Islam in France (Forif). What is your view on this entity destined to take over from the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM)? The representation of Muslims in France is a long-standing issue, having been raised since the 1980s and 1990s. It is made difficult by the confusion between the notion of representation and that of representativeness: a structure of representation is not mechanically representative of the Muslims of France. Finally, it always comes up against what it represents: are they places of worship or theological schools? These reminders raise the complexity of an issue to which the CFCM, launched in 2003, attempted to provide a response. But this proved unsatisfactory for three reasons: the institution was undermined by internal quarrels between theological tendencies and between nationalities; its mode of governance indexing the importance of its members to the surface area of their places of worship was problematic; finally, this Parisian body was cut off from its regional branches (the CRCM [regional councils of the Muslim faith]), whose lack of resources hindered any possibility of action. This gap between a Jacobin institution and everyday Islam has led to the CFCM getting bogged down, despite a positive assessment on certain issues, such as Muslim squares in cemeteries. The State has therefore logically taken note of the failure of the CFCM by wishing to rebuild a more flexible representative body and by starting again from the Islam of the territories, all while impressing a liberal intention claimed by Emmanuel Macron. You have 82.06% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
With The Authoritarian Republic (Le Bord de l'eau, 2022), the lecturer at Sciences Po Lyon Haoues Seniguer has chosen a deliberately controversial title. But it is a fundamental question that this political scientist specializing in Moroccan Islamism and the relationship between Islam and politics in France explores meticulously.
The author of The (Neo) Muslim Brotherhood and the New Capitalist Spirit. Between Moral Rigorism, Cryptocapitalism and Anticapitalism (The Water's Edge, 2019) and Islamism decoded (L'Harmattan, 2020) questions the shift that began following the 2015 attacks, which saw the Muslim community, according to him, ostracized by the public authorities. Without denying "the reality of violent extremism practiced in the name of Islam", he deplores the emergence, at the top of the State, of a "dangerous vision postulating a continuum between religious conservatism and violent actions".
The executive is currently restructuring the representation of Islam in France around a new body launched in early 2022, the Forum of Islam in France (Forif). What is your view on this entity destined to take over from the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM)?
The representation of Muslims in France is a long-standing issue, since it has been raised since the 1980s and 1990s. It is made difficult by the confusion between the notion of representation and that of representativeness: a representation structure is not mechanically representative of Muslims in France. Finally, it always comes up against what it represents: are they places of worship or theological schools?
These reminders raise the complexity of an issue to which the CFCM, launched in 2003, attempted to provide an answer. But this proved unsatisfactory for three reasons: the institution was undermined by internal quarrels between theological tendencies and between nationalities; its mode of governance indexing the importance of its members to the surface area of their places of worship was problematic; finally, this Parisian body was cut off from its regional branches (the CRCMs [regional councils of the Muslim faith]), whose lack of resources hampered any possibility of action.
This gap between a Jacobin institution and everyday Islam has led to the CFCM getting bogged down, despite a positive assessment on certain issues, such as Muslim squares in cemeteries.
The State has therefore logically taken note of the failure of the CFCM by wishing to rebuild a more flexible representative body and by starting again from the Islam of the territories, all while impressing a liberal intention claimed by Emmanuel Macron.
You have 82.06% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
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