France’s Toxic Debate over Religious Extremism

The debate on Islam, secularism and discrimination in France continues, with new events energising ill-informed pundits on TV. In the most recent case, local teacher Didier Lemaire suggested that the Paris suburb of Trappes is a stronghold of Islamic extremism, sparking comments on the incompatibility of French and Muslims identities.

After the murder of history teacher Samuel Paty, beheaded in an Islamist attack in the suburbs of Paris last October, divisions over France's secular identity deepened further. Among the different public stances, high school philosophy teacher Didier Lemaire wrote an open letter saying the state did not do enough to protect Samuel Paty and raised concerns over the spread of radical Islam in Trappes, the Paris suburb where he lives. Soon after, Lemaire told French media, he began to receive threats and is now under police protection. 

The news was widely reported by French media, followed by a media debate that gave prominence to narratives of ‘Islamisation’ and French identity being in danger. Invited to speak on a French live television talk show on C8, Jean Messiha, member of the far-right National Rally party, said: “How do you expect a medina like Trappes to be French? How do you expect to feel connected to France when you live in an Arabic way, you think in Arabic way, you dress in Arabic way and pray in Arabic?”.

Located in the Yvelines department in the south-west of Paris, Trappes is a low-income suburb with a large Muslim population. In the past few years, it has become emblematic of the government's efforts to curb radicalism. Authorities have reported a growth of hardline Salafism in Trappes and that around 50 locals have allegedly left to fight alongside jihadists in Iraq and Syria. But the claims by teacher Lemaire, and the subsequent poisonous media coverage, went far beyond the recognition that the town has problems with drugs, small crime and radicalisation. 

Speaking on the TV channel CNEWS, Lemaire claimed that there were no mixed salons in Trappes, that schoolchildren were banned from singing and some women barred from cafes. This, the Guardian reported, sparked indignation from locals, who feel stigmatised by lies, exaggerations and unjust accusations.

In another tweet, Jean Messiha falsely accused the mayor of Trappes, Ali Rabeh, to have been to an “anti-France demonstration” for attending a rally organised by ‘Justice pour Adama’, a committee demanding justice for the death of Adama Traoré, a young man who died in custody after being restrained and apprehended by police in 2016.

The conservative magazine Valeurs Actuelles published an article, titled ‘In Trappes, Islamism Defeated the Republic’ describing the town as “occupied” by Muslims and illustrating streets with halal butchers, women with the hijab, and no Christmas lights before the holiday season, to illustrate how Trappes “lives on its own calendar rhythm”. 

Le Figaro journalist Ivan Rioufol referred to Trappe as “Trappistan” to signal a supposed “dangerous Muslim invasion” in the city. This term combines the name of the city with the Persian “-stan” or “place of”, modelled on Pakistan and Afghanistan. This term is likely to take inspiration from ‘Londonistan’, which has been used in right-wing circles for years.

Guest on ‘Face à l’info’ on CNEWS, the well-known anti-Muslim commentator Éric Zemmour, said that Trappes “is a territory that is no longer French, and no longer governed by French law” as it became “a Muslim town, governed by Muslim law and Islamic law” and “a breeding ground for Islamism”.

In all these examples, journalists and TV guests propose a false binary opposition between Islam and “la République”, and ultimately between being Muslim and being French. This narrative, according to which Trappes is “no longer France”, excludes the possibility of being both Muslim and French, thereby denying 5 million citizens the right to be considered French. The underlying assumption is that both France and Islam are two unchanging and incompatible monoliths, rather than ever-evolving and multifaceted concepts. 

The perception that Islamic religious symbols - often emphasised in the descriptions of Trappes - are a threat to French secularism and republicanism fits under an ethno-nationalist narrative where Muslims have to hide any visible religious markers in order to inhabit certain public spaces, and be considered a part of French society.

According to the French legal scholar Rim-Sarah Alouane, “laicité  (secularism) has come to represent a collective public identity of the French people, a cornerstone of France’s national identity and French values, though nowhere have these been specifically defined. In the absence of such a definition, various cultural and political influences have taken control of this definition to the detriment of minorities, including and especially Muslims”.

Today, secularism is being used as a means to exert power on Muslims, often through restrictive legislation that disproportionately affects them.

In the heated debate around Republican values and Islam that pervades media and politics, Muslims are rarely heard or their voices represented.

In an interview with France24, Amel Boubekeur, researcher at the University of Grenoble who specialises in French Islam, said that the TV guests are stoking tensions on issues they don’t understand:

“There’s a hyper-politicisation of Islam in France, but Muslims are largely kept out of the conversation.”

“And so are the academics who carry out real research, but are chased away by the pundits” - he added.

Similarly to the media coverage of the murder of Paty, which failed to distinguish between the religion of Islam and the tiny minority that carry out acts of terror, much of the media coverage of Trappes failed to acknowledge the diversity of attitudes and identities within Muslim communities and excluded community members and academics from the discussion, resulting in the spread of distrust and division.