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Islam in France
Since it’s Islamic Appreciation Week here on Ricochet, I thought I’d share the findings of an interesting study of French Muslims just been published here in France.
Unlike the US, where the government obsessively counts and classifies those among us who have, say, strands of Cherokee DNA, the French government is not permitted to classify people by ethnicity nor to ask census questions about race or origins. The republic is based on the idea that all citizens are equal and free from distinctions of class, race, or religion. (And after a while here, this really starts to seem like common sense. When recently I filled out a form requesting my absentee ballot, complete with the standard box to check indicating my race, it struck me how inappropriate, intrusive, and obsessive it is constantly to ask American citizens to report their own skin color.)
It’s refreshing that the French government is genuinely color-blind, or at least, that it insists upon this ideal. On the other hand, lack of data about minorities hampers the state’s ability to measure how well these minorities are doing or recognize when a group, however artificial, is having problems best addressed qua group.
Because the government doesn’t count minorities, studies like this one are the closest thing we have to detailed census data, and thus especially valuable to those of us trying to figure out just what’s really going on here amid all the mostly pointless noise. A study like this is worth far more than anecdotal reports, especially when those reports are massaged so better improve site traffic and clicks. The author, Hakim El Karoui, is a professional geographer; he worked with the polling company iFOP, and the report seems well-designed and methodologically rigorous. They began with a nationally representative sample of more than 15,000 people, from which they extracted a sub-sample of 1029 who claimed to be Muslim or to have at least one Muslim parent. If you read French, you can read the whole thing here.
It’s very interesting, and none of this will be reported in the US, I’m sure, but it’s far too long for me to translate in one post. So today I’ll translate some of the highlights, add a few thoughts of my own, and summarize the chapters that follow. If any of them interest you, let me know, and I’ll translate them for you, or summarize them, in the coming week.
The highlights:
- Self-identified Muslims constitute 5.6 percent of the metropolitan population in France. (This is far less than commonly claimed in the US media, which often says they’re 10 percent of the French population, and sometimes puts the figure as high as 15 percent. I knew those numbers were too high, but didn’t realize the real figure was this low — although it’s consistent with what I see around me. This also means that the commonly-quoted claim that France’s Muslim population is the highest in Europe is probably wrong, although I don’t know if our estimates of the number of Muslims in other European countries are much more accurate.)
- Of the sample of 1029, 15 percent say they are not Muslims, but have at least one Muslim parent — meaning this group is about 1 percent of France’s population.
- Only 7.5 percent of the respondents identify as Muslims despite having neither a Muslim father nor mother. So the exit rate from Islam is twice as high as the entry rate. (This is obviously significant: Scandalized reports that France is being “Islamized” and the French are converting to Islam at a significant rate are fantasy and invention. Muslims have much more reason to fear secularization than vice-versa.)
- More than one in two of the respondents’ parents were born in France; 24 percent were naturalized French citizens, and 26 percent were foreign nationals.
- The average age of the respondent was 35.8. (This is younger than the average French citizen, but not really young enough to be a frighteningly virile cohort that will somehow outbreed non-Muslims.)
- The respondents’ fathers mainly come from Algeria and Morocco: 31 and 20 percent, respectively. Tunisia accounts for another 8 percent, the rest of Africa a bit more than 15 percent, and Turkey about 5 percent. The respondents’ mothers exhibited a similar profile, with very little endogamy.
- People who belong to the working classes (the authors’ term) and day laborers are over-represented. Almost 25 percent are blue-collar workers, as opposed to 13.1 percent in the overall sample; and 38% are unemployed: This is twice the average French unemployment rate. (“Average” rates here are what they extrapolated from the general sample.)
- Muslims tend to be overrepresented in precarious forms of employment (fixed term, temporary, part-time). But we’re also seeing the emergence of a middle and upper class: 10 percent were in middle management and 5 percent were very highly-skilled workers. (“Highly-skilled” is my best effort at translating a term no American would use: “professions intellectuelles supérieures.” Literally: “intellectually superior professions.”)
- The community is characterized by four traits. 1. Regular religious practice: 31 percent went to a mosque or prayer room once a week, as opposed to 8.2 percent of regular churchgoers (or appropriate analogue) in the general population; 2. A marked preference for halal food: 70 percent of the respondents said they “always” buy halal meat, 22 percent bought it “sometimes” and only 6 percent said “never”; 3. The majority supports veiling, despite major divisions: 65 percent are in favor of the veil; 4. The absence of widespread Muslim communalism: 78 percent of the respondents who are registered on electoral lists said they don’t always vote for Muslim candidates.
- Interestingly, contrary to popular opinion, men are less conservative than women. Among men, 26 percent reject veiling. Only 18 percent of women agree. (The phrasing of the question: “Do you look favorably upon veiling?”) Men were also more likely to say, “Everyone should do what they want.” The authors note the difficulty of interpreting the answer to this question, given that the full face veil is illegal in France. Does the response reflect a genuine preference for veiling, they wonder, or does it represent resentment of a meddlesome state? They’re particularly perplexed, because only 23 percent of women said that they “always” wore hijab; 7 percent said they wore it except when they were at work or school; and 5 percent wore it “rarely.”
The authors of the study count three broad groups:
- The “silent majority,” comprising 46 percent of respondents. “Their value system aligns with French society, they thus contribute to the evolution of the particularities of their faith.”
- “Conservatives.” This is something of a composite group. “They make up 25 percent of the sample and are at the heart of the political and ideological battle. The proposals in our report are tools for winning this battle. Proud to be Muslims, they claim the right to express their religion in public spaces. Very pious (Sharia is of great importance to them, so long as it’s in the boundaries of the Republic’s laws), they feel positively about expressions of religion in the workplace, and have widely adopted the “halal” standard as the definition of “a real Muslim” They firmly reject the niqab and polygamy and accept secularism.”
- “Authoritarians,” who make up 28 percent. They are mostly young, low-skilled, and at the bottom of the employment hierarchies. They live in the large suburbs around the cities. This group is defined more by its use of Islam to signify revolt from the rest of French society than by its conservatism.
Here are the chapter headings. You’ll probably be able to see from them that interesting things are made possible by the French tradition of dirigisme and its lack of a free exercise clause. Let me know if you see something you’d like to learn more about; I’ll translate it for you this week.
Summary
Foreward by Hakim El Karoui
1. A PORTRAIT OF MUSLIMS IN FRANCE
1.1. Methodology
1.2. Sociological and demographic characteristics of Muslims in France
1.2.1. Demography
1.2.2. Nationality
1.2.3. Country of Origin
1.2.4. Other Characteristics
1.3. Typology of Muslims according to their Religiosity and Sociodemographic Description of Groups
1.4. Which Islamic Practices?
1.4.1. Halal and Dietary Norms
1.4.2. The Wearing of the Veil: What Motivates It?
1.4.3. Which Religious Authorities?
1.4.4. How Often Do they Visit the Mosque?
1.5. Relationship to France, its Institutions, and Society
1.5.1. Attachment
1.5.2. Defiance
1.5.3. Openness to Others and Diversity
1.5.4. Political Opinions about French Society
1.5.5. Relationship to Politics
1.6. Conclusions of the Inquiry
2. FRENCH ISLAM: ORGANZED FROM THE TOP
a. Consular Islam
i. Foreign Countries that Transmit Islam
ii. Foreign Countries that Transmit a Fundamentalist Islam
b. L’UOIF (The Union of Islamic Organizations in France): An Islam à la française?
i. Origins and Organization
ii. An Agent of French Islam
iii. Notoriety and Institutionalization: Decline or Neutralization of the UOIF?
c. Salafism: A Rampant Ideology without a Central Organizaton
i. A Modern Fundamentalism
ii. Public Targets
iii. Differences between Brotherhood Fundamentalism and Salafist Fundamentalism
d. State Efforts to Organize a French Islam
i. Pierre Joxe and the Creation of the Conseil de Réflexion sur l’Islam en France (French Deliberative Council on Islam) or CORIF (1989- 1993)
ii. The Pasqua Method, or The Algerian Choice
iii. Jean-Louis Debré, or the Laisser-faire Method
iv. Jean-Pierre Chevènement : From Istichâra to the Premises of the CFCM
v. Nicolas Sarkozy and the Birth of the CFCM
vi. Results and Perspectives from Today’s CFCM
vii. Relations between Islam and the Republic: The Methods and the Men
viii. Relations between the State and Islam in Europe: An imperfect Institutionalization
3. ISLAM FROM THE BOTTOM
a. Everyday Islam
i. Everyday Islam: The Pyramid and the Rhizome
ii. Weight and Role of the Mosques
iii. Weight and Role of the Imams
b. Islam on the Internet: The Islam of the Multitude
4. RECOMMENDATIONS
a. Proposals
i. Create The French Foundation for Islam and the Muslim Association for a French Islam: Two Major Institutions
ii. A Chief Imam of France to Express an Islamic Doctrine Compatible with Republican Values
iii. Extend the Alsace-Morelle Concordat to Islam
iv. Accelerate Arab-Language Education
v. Create and Professionalize Chaplains
vi. Facilitate the Management of Everyday Islamic Life
vii. Create a Secretary of State, named by the Prime Minister, for Religious Affairs and Secularism
viii. Develop Knowledge of Islam
ix. Optional Scenario — Studied but not Recommended by this Report: Update the Law of 1905 to take into Account New Sects
IS A FRENCH ISLAM POSSIBLE? For and Against
And please don’t forget: If you’d like to know a lot more about this, I’m writing a book about it — and funded entirely by my readers:
I always decline to answer.
I think I’m going to be checking “other” and writing in “NASCAR” from now on.
So if the survey is right, there are about as many Muslims as there are baseball players in France….., something I am not so sure about. If they asked me, are you a Jew and I was a Jew, I am not sure how I would answer in France. Muslims might have the same reaction.
How many Muslims does it take to kill 129 people at a concert? The problem is not how many. The problem is how many are being integrated into a western style, secular society and how many are just passing through under the radar finding empathetic French Muslims who see them as worthy of assistance. It really does not take that many if you live in a permeable place like the EU.
I am going with the Pew Survey below. As for why so many Muslims seem so lackadaisical or neutral about Islam, they came to France to get away from oppression – part of which was imposed by the Mosque.
Muslim populations around the world up to 2030
Click heading to sort. Download this data
Order
# 150
Country
France
Muslim Pop
4,704,000
7.5%
Muslim Pop.
6,860,000
10.3%
% Proj Change, 2010-2030
46%
Sky News: “France Uncovering New Terror Plots ‘Every Day'”.
This doesn’t sound like successful assimilation.
Being asked to report my “race” always infuriates me.
In the last year or so, I’ve had a couple of medical professionals ask me if I have Native American ancestry. The question was not in regard to any kind of existing or potential health condition; I assume they asked because I have dark hair and high cheekbones.
Both times I answered “I have no idea; I might and I might not.” I thought about saying “if you really want to know, order a DNA analysis and you can obsess about my racial status to your heart’s content” but figured that was probably too much snark for one day.
My answer always got a disapproving glare, I assume because a) I displayed no interest in dividing my ancestry into 1/32nd and 1/64th pie slices Elizabeth-Warren style (“Hey, look at me – I’m 1/64th East Timorese!”), and b) they were looking for someone with Approved Racial Characteristics to fill a quota in some form or other, and I had thwarted their data-massaging goals.
Which goes to show how accurate those forms probably are (or aren’t) …
Me too. Every time.
That not enough. Not nearly enough. And “majority” seems a stretch at 46%. I think they mean plurality.
A concerned question: if given a real option, would this group prefer to have parts of sharia incorporated into the Republic’s laws?
Well, one of the most striking findings — this will really surprise you — is that a full 40 percent of the self-identified Muslims they surveyed believed that eating halal food was one of the five pillars of Islam. Now, that’s really amazing: I would bet that 90 percent of the people reading this thread would know it isn’t, and would know that without using Google. So what I conclude from that is that the general level of Islamic knowledge among self-identified Muslims is very poor, and probably derived much more from folk-Islam practices or “What Grandma always said” then from your friendly local itinerant Salafi preacher. So the first question is what they think the sharia is. A fairly significant number seem to have said “Yes” to that question but expressed horror at the idea of polygamy. Some said absolutely-no-way to veiling, but couldn’t see why polygamy had to be against the law. (I’m betting they were not women.)
I’ll break some of this down and translate it for you over the week, but what I conclude is that many French Muslims, like Muslims in other places I’ve seen the religion practiced (rather than discussed) haven’t necessarily even read the Quran cover-to-cover, no less given much thought about what it means. That’s why I think the authors may be right to say, “We need French imams who can provide liberal interpretations of this text and tradition, because otherwise, when these basically secularized kids have a crisis of adolescent angst, they’re going to dial 1-800-Salafi and get their heads pumped full of stuff no liberal society can accept.”
You’d be surprised how many Christians are a bit ignorant on the Bible and its teachings.
Just because they’d frustrate their Imams with this ignorance, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t welcome their country moving toward their legal preferences.
This. My francophone friend Mahmoud from the Ivory Coast will explain the intricacies of a technical IT procedure in exactly the same way Jacques Pepin tells you how to make a perfect apple tart. The rhythm, the structure, even in English it is almost like a catechism. It is the essence of France.
It doesn’t mean it, no, but I think if you’ve grown up in France, you probably view a lot of the more repugnant practices of the Sharia — at least as, say, Saudi clerics interpret it — every bit as repugnant as we do. Why wouldn’t you?
I remember telling one Muslim friend about the age of Muhammad’s wife (he had no idea). First he told me I was wrong, then he looked it up and found I was right, then he promptly rationalized it away (as people do, when trying not to have their heads explode), “Well, that was a different time, different context, etc.” Obviously he was satisfied with his interpretation. He also broke the news about the age of Muhammad’s wife to his father, who didn’t know either. His father was a more pious man than he was, took him aside and said, “Son, you know I love you, and I’ve never tried to force my religion down your throat, but you mustn’t speak like that about the Prophet, it breaks my heart.” He refused to believe it was right there in Chapter 66 — he thought his son was just being blasphemous, in a really disgusting and offensive way.
Yep! Glad you got what I was getting at.
For what it’s worth, if the Muslim population of France is 1/3 – 1/2 the size it was widely believed, doesn’t that mean any given individual is it’s 2-3 times more likely to be involved in terrorism for any given level of violence or support for it?
Claire,
This reveals the absurd wishful thinking of the people behind this study.
cont.
cont. from #45
First, adding the “conservatives” to the “authoritarians” (their names not mine) we get the real majority. These are people who are strict adherents to Sharia. They will be resistant to anything like Western Values. They will not be assimilating anytime soon. Like not this generation or the next. They will be a threat in every way to the values of liberal society. Only through hypocritical special government treatment can these people be accommodated in French society.
That is just the start of the difficulty. The magic word “authoritarian” is supposed to make you think that this is just an ordinary social phenomenon. A full one-fourth of this entire population is primed for a full belief in violent Jihad. If the Jihadist belief system which constitutes, sedition, subversion, and (obviously) incitement to violence isn’t stopped in its tracks it will find the weak & susceptible and lure them into insane attacks on the innocent.
I am giving this study the benefit of the doubt that they haven’t chosen a place to sample that would skew the data. I don’t know why I should.
Regards,
Jim
I find the naqib in the illustration arousing. Rather like diaphanous panties.
I do not read French, so I cant’t tell what corrections, etc. were made.
The “self-identified Muslims” presumably means only Muslim adults. How low in age did the polling go? What happens to the numbers when you add in the Muslim youth?
Red alert on “respondent” again. If the polling was limited to adults, absent correction, this could mean the average age of Muslim adults is younger than the average age of the French population as a whole.
As another person pointed out, I would guess that among Muslims, there is a bias toward the younger ones (the more recent, less assimilated immigrants) not responding.
Niqab
Thanks for mocking my dyslexia. Hater.
It seems to me the biggest cleavage in the Islamic communities in the west are those that immigrated “voluntarily” and those that feel they were “pushed” as refugees or under quasi-refugee conditions and resent their new societies. We see this in the differences between most Moslem immigrants in Texas and those in Minneapolis, the North Africans in France versus the Pakistanis in Great Britain, the very troubling polling of the “refugees” from Syria, a majority of whom in recent polling express no gratitude towards Germany but say “Allah opened this door for us.” I foresee dark days ahead because of this insanity.
I disagree. I think it’s more just a matter of era.
I know a number of Muslims born in the mid-1960’s in the US whose parents or grandparents immigrated as a result of the partition of India and who assimilated. We are talking about people who grew up a half generation before the US public schools would have told them that the Muslim world is so much superior to the US and anything wrong with the Muslim world is the result of some horrible crime committed against them by the West, the US, or the Jews (and for which revenge must be taken).
Mind you, the public schools were already screwed up enough that they all were leftists. But hedonistic leftists.
Yes, I figure it does. That’s logical, isn’t it?
Another huge difference (I wrote about this in this book) is social class of origin. Immigrants from the southeast of Turkey face a huge (and sometimes politically radicalizing) culture shock even when they move to Istanbul — going from village life to modern urban life is more than some can handle. If they’re goat-herders who moved from Batıbelenörenin in Yenipazar to Berlin, the culture shock is going to be much, much more traumatic than if they’re educated physicians or architects or physicists moving from Istanbul to Berlin. The village-to-urban transition screws people up for at least a generation everywhere it happens, whether that’s in the original country or in a second country.
But is the % large enough to be meaningful?
5% to 10% matters.
0.1% to 0.2% less so.
How about we just interpret Muhammad as occasionally doing bad stuff. The Jewish kings did bad stuff all the time but Jews still venerate G-d and study their kings.
Meaningful to what? What question are we trying to answer?
Well, no. Even the small amount I summarized makes that very clear. They say the Sharia is important to them, but also say they reject polygamy, veiling, and the parts of the Sharia that are incompatible with French law. Given that — as I mentioned above — 40 percent of the sample believed that eating halal food was one of the five pillars of Islam, it seems very likely to me that this cohort is largely comprised of the kind of normal Muslims most of us know — people who don’t eat pork, celebrate the holidays with their family, are kind of confused about the theological details, and hate jihadis with a white-hot passion because they make Islam look bad.
Of whom? Of the terrorist plots? Or of the cops who are discovering them?
If a large proportion of French Muslims are sympathetic to jihad, then a change in how many French Muslims we realise there are means a significant change in the absolute number of people we think are supporting jihad.
If tiny proportion, then not so significant wrt absolute numbers.