TRYING TO UNDERSTAND FRENCH SECULARISMIncidentally, I do not suggest that the distribution of pain engendered by modern
power is worse than the distribution in premodern societies but only that it is different.
Nor do I make the foolish claim that there has been no progress in matters of suffering.
The cure of various illnesses and improvements in public health and welfare are undeni-
able social facts that have led to the amelioration of distress and affliction. My point is
only that more is at stake in secularism than compassion for other human beings in plural
democratic societies. And nothing is less plausible than the claim that secularism is an
essential means of avoiding destructive conflict and establishing peace in the modern
world. Secular societies—France among them—have always been capable of seeking soli-
darity at home while engaging in national wars and imperial conquests. They are also
likely to pay greater attention to problems of political order and social solidarity than to
the distress that might be caused to members of one or another religious group by govern-
ment policies aiming at national unity.
Today, France is being incorporated into the fiscal structure of the European Union.
This situation, as well as the transnational movements of peoples and resources, of words
and images, affect it in unpredictable ways. The stateappearsto be less strong than it was.
Problems of political order and social security begin to seem ever more urgent.
Passionate Subjects
‘‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’’ is a well-known image of the lay Republic. It is claimed
that the secular state will not tolerate any intolerance within its jurisdiction. Its law in-
scribes ‘‘freedom of conscience’’ and ‘‘liberty of expression,’’ ‘‘equality of political rights’’
and ‘‘equal access to the benefits of the welfare state.’’ Liberty and equality thus refer to
the legal status of citizens but fraternity is essentially a matter of affect, one’s bond with
the nation. It is thus an indication of the fact thatlaı ̈cite ́is not simply a matter of legal
inscriptions and political arrangements (the law state).
So how fraternal are the relations the nation oversees among its religiously diverse
members? Is the nation simply the unit that is bound together in sentiments of solidarity?
Vincent Geisser documents the growing tide of hostility toward Muslims and Arabs living
in France today and recounts the many public statements and actions that have sought to
connect this population with concerns about national security.^40 According to Geisser and
others, dislike of Muslims and Islam has roots in a bitter colonial history—especially its
troubled relations with Algeria—which is kept alive by a million colonial settlers who
‘‘returned’’ to France after its independence. ‘‘French’’ as an identity is commonly op-
posed, as it was in Algeria, to the inferior categories of ‘‘Arab’’ or ‘‘Muslim’’ (or ‘‘magh-
rebin’’). This public attitude is now reinforced by a new concern about international
terrorism. Yet in the nineteenth century a long line of French writers and travelers (in-
cluding Nerval, Lamartine, and Flaubert) depicted Arabs and Muslims sympathetically—
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