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world news Dialuna 2 november 2020

French Muslims, stigmatized by attacks, feel under pressure

(AP) — The pressure rises
with each gruesome at-
tack. After three in five
weeks, France’s Muslims
are feeling squeezed.
A spotlight of suspicion was
trained on them again even
before the latest acts of ex-
tremist violence, including
two beheadings. President
Emmanuel Macron has
forged ahead with his effort
to rid Islam in France of ex-
tremists, part of a project he
labels “separatism,” a term
that makes Muslims wince.

Amid intensifying rhetoric
and fresh attacks by outsid-
ers, including the killings
of three people Thursday at
a Catholic church in Nice,
Muslims in France have kept
their heads down and chins
up. But deep down, some are
squirming, feeling they are
being held responsible.
“It’s worrisome for Mus-
lims,” said Hicham Benaissa,
a sociologist who special-
izes in Islam in the work-
place. Within his network, he outside his school Oct. 16 by The attacks and Macron’s it a threat,” she said. sibility for the “ghettoization”
said, some “talk about leav- a teenage refugee of Chech- “separatism” plan, which in- of Muslims in housing proj-
ing France. The situation is en origin for showing the cludes a partial overhaul of The rise of Islam into public ects but insists the planned
tense. There is fear.” caricatures in a civics class. the way Islam is organized view was gradual and mostly law is not about stigmatizing
A young Tunisian man killed in France, from the training went unnoticed until the far Muslims.
Islam is the second religion three people Thursday inside of imams to management of right seized upon it as a threat Yet stigmatism is part of life
in France, which has the the basilica in the southern Muslim associations, have to the French identity. Over in France for many, from be-
largest Muslim population city of Nice, beheading one drilled home the divide. the years mosques have mul- ing singled out by police for
in Western Europe. But the woman, The series of blood- They also have focused atten- tiplied, along with Muslim ID checks to discrimination
country’s estimated 5 mil- letting began Sept. 25 when a tion on the cherished value schools. in job searches.
lion Muslims have walked a young Pakistani refugee in- of secularism — “laicite” in
delicate line in search of full jured two people outside the French — which is enshrined Muslim men initially came “The Muslim is reduced to
acceptance in what for many former Charlie Hebdo news- in the French Constitution to France to take menial jobs his religion,” said Oubrou,
is their nation of birth. Dis- room office in Paris. In Janu- but is still not clearly defined. following World War II. In the Bordeaux imam. “Every-
crimination casts a shadow ary 2015, attackers massacred the 1970s, immigrant Mus- thing is not Christian in the
over some and is an outright 12 people there after the pa- “The presence of Islam was lims working in car facto- life of a Christian.”
barrier to mainstream life for per published caricatures of not something foreseen by ries, construction and other
others. the prophet. That trial is un- French society,” said Tareq sectors were “absolutely es- The religion with no single
derway. Oubrou, a leading imam in sential to French industry,” leader has multiple strains in
France's cherished value of Bordeaux. Benaissa said. Renault, for France, running from mod-
secularism, which is meant to Words of solidarity from instance, installed prayer erate to Salafist with a rig-
ensure religious freedom, has France’s Muslim leaders Tensions have run high in the rooms. orous interpretation of the
in recent years been used by have been unfailing. The at- past, notably with changes “Today, when a veiled woman religion to outright radical
the state to reign in customs tack “touched brothers and to the secularism law, with arrives in a company, there is upstarts.
practiced by some Muslims. sisters who were praying to a 2004 law banning heads- ... a revolt. What happened?” In his project, Macron envi-
The president’s proposed law their lord. I am deeply Chris- carves in classrooms and an- he asked. sions measures like training
may mean further tinkering tian today,” said the imam of other in 2010 banning face- imams in France instead of
with the 1905 secularism law Nice’s Ar-Rahma Mosque, coverings. Many Muslims, unlike their bringing them in from Tur-
born out of a conflict with Otman Aissaoui. “Secularism has always been parents or grandparents, are key, Morocco or Algeria.
the powerful Roman Catho- a smokescreen ... a hidden getting educations, better
lic clergy. But, “once again we are stig- way to treat the question of jobs and erasing the “myth of Benaissa doesn't underesti-
matized, and people move so Islam,” Benaissa said. return,” he said. mate the “ideological offen-
Macron has prompted angry fast to lump things together,” Rim-Sarah Alouane, a doc- sive” of political Islam, but
protests and calls for boycotts Aissaoui also said, reflecting toral candidate at Toulouse Olivier Roy, a top expert, says a ferocious public debate
of French products this past the deepening discomfort of Capitole University, re- told a parliamentary com- is reducing Islam to a single
week from South Asia to the France’s Muslims, most from searching religious freedom mittee that most Muslims fear.
Mideast. He is accused of former French colonies in and civil liberties, is tougher. have worked to integrate into
spreading anti-Muslim sen- North Africa. “Since the l990s, laïcité has French culture. They “for- “Islam is not Islamism, a
timent, notably while eulo- Muslims “are neither guilty been weaponized and mis- mat themselves to the French Muslim is not an Islamist. An
gizing the teacher who was nor responsible ... We used as a political tool to Republic and complain they Islamist is not necessarily a ji-
decapitated near Paris, by de- shouldn’t have to justify our- limit the visibility of religious don’t get a payback in return, hadi,” he said. “What I fear is
fending the French right to selves,” said Abdallah Ze- signs, especially Muslim don’t have the benefit of rec- that identities radicalize, with
caricaturize Islam’s Prophet kri, an official of the French ones,” she said. ognition,” he said. on one side those claiming
Muhammad. Council for the Muslim “The state needs to make sure the Muslim identity and on
Faith. to respect and fully embrace Macron conceded in a speech the other those claiming the
Samuel Paty was attacked its diversity and not consider that France bears full respon- identity of France.”