French Muslims, Unable to Blend

Since the attack on Charlie Hebdo in January, French Muslims have faced a backlash, especially in Marseilles which has a sizable Muslim community.

In an essay for the New York Times, James Estrin describes the difficulty these Muslims have blending into French society. According to Bharat Choudhary, who has studied Muslim communities in the Untied States and Europe, the dreams and aspirations of French Muslims are destroyed by a society they see as against them.

He notes that “for the religiously observant, the enforced secularism of French society left little room to live, dress and worship as they pleased. Wearing a hijab or a head scarf is not allowed in public schools, and wearing the face covering niqab is also banned in public.”

What’s more, Choudhary claims, poverty, and racial and religious discrimination makes it diffcult for Muslims to get ahead.

This is a fascinating story which includes an excellent slide show of photographs that Choudhary made while studying Muslims in Marseilles. In addition, you can learn the background for the growing French resentment of the Muslim minority in the PBS Newshour clip above.

Here are several other excellent resources about the growing rift between France and its Muslim communities.

• The Week has an excellent analysis called France’s alienated Muslims.
• Aljazeera has an interesting story called “For French Muslims, citizenship is conditional.”
• The Economist has a story called Apartheid, or Just Apart.

The irony in all this is that centuries ago during the golden age of Islam during the Abbasid caliphate, Muslims allowed Christians and Jews to live peacefully as long as they paid a special tax.