Secular Institutions, Islam, and Education Policy

In January 2015, three attackers walked into the office of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in Paris, opened fire and killed twelve people, including a Muslim policeman, in the deadliest terrorist attack on France for 50 years. We live in a time of suspicion and fear, not least because religion has returned to the centre stage of collective memories in Europe and in the United States. Amidst claims of threat to national identities in an era of increasing diversity, should we be worried about the upsurge in religious animosity in the United States, as well as Europe? Paola Mattei and Andrew Aguilar show in this paper that French society is divided along conflicts about religious identity, increasingly visible in public schools.  Republicanism, based on the solidarity and secularism, is viewed by many as the cause of discrimination and unfairness against minority groups. Policies invoking laïcité are frequently criticised as a disguised form of Islamophobia.The paper argues, on the contrary, that secularism in France is a flexible concept, translated into contradictory policy programmes, and subject to varying political interpretations. Laicité is a militant ideal, but we argue, against influential voices in the field, not inherently so. Our findings are about schoolchildren, the ‘lost children of France’, and their families, and how minority groups experience policies aimed at preserving the republican ideals of universalism and assimilation, a necessary evil in the eyes of many immigrants in France and the United States.