untitled

Laı ̈cite ́, or the Politics of Republican Secularism

Yolande Jansen

The fact that citizens inhabit several public spheres that overlap and extend

laterally and donotcoincide with national boundaries produces difficulties

for the modern secular state.

—Talal Asad

Laı ̈cite ́creates the religious by turning it into a separate category, which

should be isolated and circumscribed. It reinforces religious identities in-

stead of letting them dissolve into more diversified practices and identities.

—Olivier Roy

In the end it is not the girl who is excluded, but the scarf.

—Henri Pena-Ruiz

Laı ̈cite ́—the French version of secularism, which insists on the strict
separation of church and state or, more generally, of politics and reli-
gion—has become well known internationally in the context of the
March 2004 law prohibiting pupils at public schools from wearing ‘‘sig-
nes religieux ostensibles [conspicuous religious signs].’’^1 Historically,
however, it is important to viewlaı ̈cite ́in the context of the struggle
between Catholicism and Republicanism during the first decades of the
Third Republic (1870–1905). This contextualization will allow us to cri-
tique the use oflaı ̈cite ́,but also of secularism more generally, as a frame
within which to conceptualize contemporary questions concerning
ethno-religious diversity and, in particular, the presence of Islam. I will
argue that, if we want to try to answer contemporary questions con-
cerning the deep diversities and inequalities that have arisen in the con-
text of postcolonial migration, we need to deconstruct the opposition
betweenlaı ̈cite ́andcommunautarisme, the generic term used in French
discourses to denote most versions of multiculturalism and identity pol-

PAGE 475

475

.................16224$ CH24 10-13-06 12:36:12 PS