Muslim professionals quit ‘hostile’ France in silent brain drain

Paris (AFP) – After being knocked back at some 50 interviews for consulting jobs in France despite his ample qualifications, Muslim business school graduate Adam packed his bags and moved to a new life in Dubai.

“I feel much better here than in France,” the 32-year-old of North African descent told AFP.

“We’re all equal. You can have a boss who’s Indian, Arab or a French person,” he said.

“My religion is more accepted.”

Highly-qualified French citizens from Muslim backgrounds, often the children of immigrants, are leaving France in a quiet brain drain, seeking a new start abroad in cities like London, New York, Montreal or Dubai, according to a new study.

The authors of “France, you love it but you leave it”, published last month, said it was difficult to estimate exactly how many.

But they found that 71 percent of more than 1,000 people who responded to their survey circulated online had left in part because of racism and discrimination.

Adam, who asked that his surname not be used, told AFP his new job in the United Arab Emirates has given him fresh perspective.

In France “you need to work twice as hard when you come from certain minorities”, he said.

He said he was “extremely grateful” for his French education and missed his friends, family and the rich cultural life of the country where he grew up.

But he said he was glad to have quit its “Islamophobia” and “systemic racism” that meant he was stopped by police for no reason.

‘Humiliating’

France has long been a country of immigration, including from its former colonies in North and West Africa.

But today the descendants of Muslim immigrants who came to France seeking a better future say they have been living in an increasingly hostile environment, especially after the Islamic State jihadist attacks in Paris in 2015 that killed 130 people.

They say France’s particular form of secularism, which bans all religious symbols in public schools including headscarves and long robes, seems to disproportionately focus on the attire of Muslim women.

Another French Muslim, a 33-year-old tech employee of Moroccan descent, told AFP he and his pregnant wife were planning to emigrate to “a more peaceful society” in southeast Asia.

He said he would miss France’s “sublime” cuisine and the queues outside the bakeries.

But “we’re suffocating in France”, said the business school graduate with a five-figure monthly salary.

He described wanting to leave “this ambient gloom”, in which television news channels seem to target all Muslims as scapegoats.

FULL ARTICLE FROM FRANCE24

France’s biggest Muslim school went from accolades to defunding – showing a key paradox in how the country treats Islam

France is famously strict on enforcing what it calls “laïcité”: keeping religion out of the public sphere. Yet more than 7,500 private schools receive government funding, and most are Catholic. In a country where about 1 in 10 people are Muslim, just three Muslim high schools receive state support – or did.

In December 2023, local authorities of the French Ministry of the Interior confirmed a decision to revoke state funding from Lycée Averroès, France’s largest and most acclaimed private Muslim high school. Authorities cited “serious breaches of the fundamental principles of the Republic,” raised concerns over certain texts in religious education classes, and accused administrators of opaque financial management, among various alleged infractions.

None of these claims are supported by previous inspection reports, and many French scholars and activists have denounced the decision as politically motivated, setting off a political firestorm.

Lycée Averroès, located in the suburbs of Lille, opened in 2003 and was granted state funding in 2008. In 2013, it was named the best high school in France, according to the Parisien newspaper’s rankings, and has consistently ranked among the region’s best in recent years. Teachers and administrators pride themselves on being dedicated to both French Republican and Islamic values. As our research has shown, the school often goes above and beyond to teach civic values such as equality and laïcité.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE CONVERSATION

France to ban Islamic dress in schools

France is slated to ban an Islamic garment traditionally worn by some Muslin women from its state-run schools, according to the French education minister.

Education Minister Gabriel Attal said during an interview with French TV channel TF1 that the abaya — the full-length robes worn by some Muslim women — will be banned from schools, Reuters reported. This is just the latest steps the French government has taken in curtailing Islamic dress in public.

“I have decided that the abaya could no longer be worn in schools,” Attal said in the interview.

“When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them,” he said.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE HILL

In France, Secularism Is a Justification for Discrimination Against Muslims

Outside the Lycée Robert Doisneau in Vaulx-en-Velin, a suburb of Lyon, France, there is a large circular window that doubles as a mirror. Every morning, I watch my students gather around it to remove their hijabs, pin back stray hairs, and tighten loose ponytails before crossing the border into their high school. Throughout the day, they wrap their veils around their necks like scarves, ready for the moment they will cross the border again, crowding around the same mirror to pin it back in place.

This ritual is not unique to the Lycée Robert Doinseau or the city of Lyon; it is a tenet of the French education system, the consequence of a 2004 law that banned the presence of “conspicuous religious symbols” in schools on the basis of the French principle of laïcité (the oft-forgotten “ité” of the liberté, egalité, fraternité trinity), translated into English as “secularism,” or the separation of church and state. The state’s restraining order against religion has been stitched into the fabric of French society: laïcité dates back to a 1905 law that aimed to eliminate the influence of the Catholic church on politics, putting one last nail in the theocratical coffin. France guarantees freedom of religion, but institutions of the state — such as public schools — must be religiously neutral.

As a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Lyon, I have begun to understand what the French mean when they claim that “la république est laïque.” When students and faculty pass through the school’s gates, their religious, political, and philosophical beliefs are subordinated to their national identity. The majority of my school’s students are Muslim. Still, there are no prayer rooms, no affinity groups, and no Halal meals. If there were a Pledge of Allegiance, there would certainly be no mentions of God. All instances of proselytizing, prayer, and, as of 2004, religious signage and clothing are documented and potentially sanctioned.

It is a jarring departure from a country whose citizens wear their religion on their sleeves. In the United States, refusing to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practices is prohibited by the Civil Rights Act. Americans understand liberty as the freedom to pray, assemble, and profess religious beliefs — whereas France conceptualizes this same liberty as the freedom from religion and the divisions it may sow.

Like most legislation, laïcité began with good intentions: places of learning will transcend religious dogma! Students won’t be discriminated against for their beliefs! But it has expanded its reach to contract around the lives it aimed to liberate.When I told my host family I’d be teaching in Lyon’s Vaulx-en-Velin, they reacted with sympathy, vaguely alluding to behavioral issues. Others were more direct: ‘But that’s where all the Arabs live!’

One day, our school has a fire drill. I watch as hundreds of students flood out the gates and dozens of girls wrap their hijabs as though they’ve been caught in winter without a coat. They do this even though we will only wait outside for a few minutes, even though they will inevitably be forced to remove them again.

FULL ARTICLE FROM JACOBIN

French Muslims uneasy as Islam takes centre stage in election

PARIS  — The role of Islam in French society has emerged as a key battleground in the presidential election campaign, leaving many French Muslims uneasy over the bursts of rhetoric against the nation’s largest religious minority.

Far-right candidates Marine Le Pen of the National Rally (RN) and especially the former pundit Eric Zemmour have railed against Islam in frequent diatribes invoking security and terrorism risks.

Their messages are sometimes echoed by officials on the conservative right and allies of centrist President Emmanuel Macron, with their warnings on radical Islamism.

Such a fierce campaign debate about Islam would be less conceivable in neighbours like Britain and Germany, which also both have large Muslim minorities.

France, however, still lives in the shadow of the trauma of Algeria’s War of Independence and, more recently, the massacres of 2015.

Zemmour, who is contending with Le Pen and the traditional rightwing candidate Valerie Pecresse to reach a second round run-off against Macron, caused a fresh outcry on Monday by describing the town of Roubaix in northern France as “Afghanistan two hours from Paris”.

He told France Inter Radio: “French people who are Muslims must live in the French way and not consider that sharia law is superior to the laws of the republic.”

His comments added to a febrile atmosphere that meant that a journalist had to be given police protection after a televised report about the rise of Islam in Roubaix.

The official division of church and state in France in 1905 left secularism as one of the cornerstones of the modern republic’s identity.

Macron’s government in 2021 also brought in a new law to defend France against what the president has described as “Islamist separatism”.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE JORDAN TIMES

France should mobilize rather than marginalize its Muslims

The egalitarian principles of the French republic would suggest that the state is blind to the creeds and private beliefs of its citizens. For the most part, this is correct. Its very particular brand of state-endorsed secularism projects a certain veneer of a republic to which all its citizens have an equal right. However, for France’s second-largest religious group, its Muslims, this blanket equality falls short. Decades of marginalization have characterized their experience, but since the government embarked on a struggle against what it calls “Islamist separatism,” many French Muslims feel that the xenophobia and discrimination they face has become mainstream.

The “laicite” (secularism) with which French policymakers are so obsessed mandates strict delineation between the state and the private sphere of personal beliefs. This wall between the two was originally meant to protect citizens from the intrusion of the state and the state from religious influence, which frequently raised its head throughout the country’s history. This arrangement has, however, come increasingly unstuck as the state seems to be involving itself more and more in the lives of its Muslim citizens.

For decades now, French presidents have stuck their noses into Islamic dress codes, dietary needs, and the plethora of religious institutions and places of worship modern France is home to. With an aging population struggling to cope with the societal transitions of post-imperial France, French leaders have sought to focus on the country’s Muslims as an electoral scapegoat in lieu of making the bold structural changes that are so desperately needed.

FULL ARTICLE FROM ARAB NEWS

France, the way to Islamic reformation is to challenge institutions — not stigmatize Muslims

Opinion by Ezzedine C. FishereOct. 20, 2020 at 2:26 p.m. EDTAdd to list

Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to regulate Islam in France and clamp down on so-called Islamic separatism. His statement drew criticism immediately, obscuring a deeper point. Recent events underscore the need for a reformed reading of Islam. But such reformation will not be brought about by stigmatizing Islam or Muslim communities, as the French president did. What is needed is to challenge Muslim institutions to take a clear position on Islamic jurisprudence justifying violence.

Macron’s speech of Oct. 2 wasn’t supposed to be a criticism of Islam. It was a policy statement about cracking down on “radical Islamist” influence among French Muslims to prevent their transformation into a “counter-republican” community. However, Macron’s bizarre remark that Islam “is in crisis all over the world today” unsurprisingly got most of the attention in the Middle East. The response was swift.

Countless voices in the Middle East and beyond decried French anti-Muslim bias, both now and during its colonial past, and warned that Macron’s remarks would trigger a far-right anti-Muslim backlash. Al-Azhar, Egypt’s leading religious authority, slammed Macron’s “racist” “hate speech” that will “inflame the feelings of two billion Muslim followers” around the world, and “block the path to constructive dialogue.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan didn’t miss the opportunity to belittle his French nemesis, with phrases such as “beyond disrespect,” “an open provocation” and “like a colonial governor.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

Muslims in Paris show solidarity with Christians over Notre-Dame fire

Preparation of the interreligious meeting in Paris, July 6. (Photo by A PASSILLY)

Muslims in France have participated in an interreligious gathering to show support to Catholics who are still coming to terms with last April’s fire that damaged Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The Muslims actually requested the gathering as way to offer their solidarity. The meeting was held on July 6 and organized by the Christian movement Efesia as part of the “Together with Mary” interreligious group.

Musicians had been rehearsing for about an hour and people passing by the Quai de la Tournelle, in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, already had their refrain dedicated to Notre-Dame in mind when, around 6 p.m., the gathering officially began.

They followed one another onto the small platform, with its back to the Seine and then on to the cathedral ravaged by the flames on April 15.

Paris’ Auxiliary Bishop Denis Jachiet was on hand to represent Catholics. Anouar Kbibech, Vice-President of the French Council of Muslim Worship, represented the Sunni Muslims, while Sheikh Mohamed Ali Mortada was there for the Shiites.

Much more than the Cathedral of Catholics

“We had organized an event around Mary just before the fire, at the Shiite mosque in La Courneuve, with our friends from Efesia. At a meeting, after the disaster, we asked ourselves how we could show our support for the Christian community,” said Amrina Darmsy Ladha, a Shiite Muslim, after reading a passage from the Quran in front of the 100 people who gathered there.

Like her, many Muslims came to share their sentiments.

FULL ARTICLE FROM INTERNATIONAL LA-CROIX

Beautiful diversity: Football to spur social reform as Muslim players shine for France at World Cup

KARACHI  : As Les Bleus clinched their second World Cup title after a thrilling final win over Croatia, social media was quick to underscore that the team had seven Muslim players in it and how the country must apply its on-field victories off the field as well.

Adil Rami, Djibril Sidibé, Benjamin Mendy, Paul Pogba , N’Golo Kanté, Nabil Fekir and Ousmane Dembélé all practice the faith.

The country which is often in the spotlight for its Islamophobic social policies won the ultimate footballing prize with a team that is one-third Muslim.

Twitterati called on France to put an end to its “hypocrisy” and acknowledge the foundational and positive role Muslims play in developing its society.

“Africans and Muslims delivered you a second World Cup, now deliver them justice,” American author Khaled Beydoun wrote.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE TRIBUNE (PAKISTAN)

Muslims Recoil at a French Proposal to Change the Quran

Some of France’s most prominent figures, concerned about anti-Semitism, have signed a shocking manifesto aimed at curbing it.

A manifesto published in the French daily Le Parisien on April 21—signed by some 300 prominent intellectuals and politicians, including former President Nicolas Sarkozy and former Prime Minister Manuel Valls—made a shocking demand. Arguing that the Quran incites violence, it insisted that “the verses of the Quran calling for murder and punishment of Jews, Christians, and nonbelievers be struck to obsolescence by religious authorities,” so that “no believer can refer to a sacred text to commit a crime.”

Although it’s not entirely clear whether “struck to obsolescence” means wholesale deletion of verses, the manifesto was perceived as a call to abrogate Muslims’ holiest text. And although pushing for a theological reform of Islam in France is nothing new—everyone from leading imams to President Emmanuel Macron have made plans to restructure Islam—demanding that scriptural verses be deleted is another thing altogether. In Islam, the Quran is considered divinely revealed; because it’s deemed to be the word of God, altering or deleting any part of the text would be blasphemous.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE ATLANTIC