French Elites and Construction of the ‘Muslim Problem': The Case of the High Council for Integration (1989-2012)

Since the early 1980s, the French public sphere is marked by the construction of a ‘Muslim problem,’ which has become a social evidence among the elite. The paper analyzes the construction of this evidence through the sociology of the High Council for Integration (HCI), whose members belong to multiple elites fractions (politicians, academics, high civil servants, intellectuals, journalists, activists, etc.) and which constitutes a ‘neutral place’ that allowed the universalization of the ‘Muslim problem.’ We assume a generalized heteronomy, which promotes the action of multi-positioned agents reaching to transform and circulate the idea of a ‘Muslim problem’ in several social spaces. By analyzing the stages of problematisation of Islam by the HCI between 1989 and 2012, we show that this heteronomy involved a redefinition of the ‘Muslim problem’ through media terms and that the work of mobilization against the ‘Muslim problem’ provoked a transformation of the secular standard (emergence of a ‘field of secularism’) and institution (from ‘Committee of Wise Men’ to ‘government think tank’).