National Identity Debate Irks France Muslims

CAIRO – A French debate on defining the values constituting national identity is sparking controversy in the western European country, amid warnings that the discussions are particularly targeting the Muslim presence.

“When they define the shared values that make France’s national identity, they always focus on secularism, and integrating immigrants,” Myriam Belmehdi, 19, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday, December 14.

“And we know that means that they are talking about Muslims.”
France is home to nearly seven million Muslims, the biggest Muslim minority in Europe.

“Muslims are the largest community here who are still very religious,” said Belmehdi, of North African origin.

“So does that mean that if Muslims don’t feel so strongly about secularism, that they’re not part of France’s identity?”

The French government started early November a three-month debate on French national identity.

But the debate, championed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, has sparked controversy across the country.

“What will I say to my colleagues [in foreign countries] who ask about this debate?” asked historian Jean-Yves Mollier during a public discussion last week.
“I will be ashamed. Ashamed of living in this country,” he added, warning the debate would stigmatize those who don’t fall into France’s native caste.

He also cautioned that the debate is opening “a Pandora’s box” and awakening right-wing, anti-immigrant sentiments.

Xenophobia Analysts echo similar concerns, warning that the debate is offering a platform for xenophobic views.

(With the debate), we added flames to the fire,” said Jerome Fourquet, assistant director for the French Ffop polling service.

A mosque was attacked Sunday in southern city of Castres, with assailants scrawling Nazi graffiti and hanging pig feet on the mosque walls.Fourquet said the national identity discussions have triggered a debate about Islam’s presence in France, especially since Switzerland’s minaret ban.”The visibility of Islam, whether it was the burka on the streets or the minarets, already posed a problem to the French,” he said, adding that the Swiss minaret ban has “resurfaced” the debate on Islam again.

“These are very sensitive questions.”

Sarkozy himself has given a mixed message to the Muslim minority in the country.
“I address my Muslim countrymen to say I will do everything to make them feel they are citizens like any other, enjoying the same rights as all the others to live their faith and practice their religion with the same liberty and dignity,” he said in statement published by Le Monde last week.

“I will combat any form of discrimination.

“But I also want to tell them that in our country, where Christian civilization has left such a deep trace, where republican values are an integral part of our national identity, everything that could be taken as a challenge to this heritage and its values would condemn to failure the necessary inauguration of a French Islam.”

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