TRYING TO UNDERSTAND FRENCH SECULARISMpelagos of solidarity set in seas of danger or distaste, that do not coincide with state
boundaries.
It will quickly be pointed out that this sharing of values and sentiments is not about
quotidian life but about collective decision making at a nation-state level by which diver-
sity is managed and a sense of national belonging is fostered, and that the latter can only
happen if civil status is separated from religious affiliation. But although it is normal for
liberal democracies to insist that all citizens have the same civil and political rights—for
example, that they are entitled to due process, to political and legal representation, and
so on, irrespective of belief, race, or gender—it does not follow that religious, racial, or
gender criteria are necessarily excluded from consideration in assessing or improving the
status of legal persons who are citizens.^1 In other words, neither the qualities that make
all citizens politically equal in a liberal democracy nor those that differentiate them in it
require ‘‘the general sharing of core values’’—a homogeneity that definesthe nationas a
community of sentiment rather than the state as a structure of law.
In relation to the European Union, one often reads that ‘‘A shared religious heritage
based on Christian values... may be seen as one formative cultural influence at the heart
of and giving substance to ‘European’ civilization.’’^2 Although the constitution of the
European Union excludes any reference to Christianity, the sentiment that Christianity is
central to its heritage remains quite common in Europe. Many French people, while
strongly opposed to any mention of religion in the EU Constitution,^3 have no difficulty
in speaking of their ‘‘Judeo-Christian legacy’’^4 —a pregnant phrase now that ‘‘Islam’’ has
become the Stranger Within. A history of shared cultural values is taken to be a sound
basis for political union. What it means to say that Europe shares a religious heritage,
however, given its recent history of bitter conflicts and wars, is not clear. Nor is it obvious
what ‘‘Christian values’’ (or ‘‘Judeo-Christian values’’) are, given that historically Chris-
tians (and Jews) have valued a wide range of often inconsistent things on the basis of
different interpretations of traditional texts. Nevertheless, the idea that a successful
modern nation-state rests on a dominant culture that encodes shared values is now
commonplace.
The assumption that there are core values, a national culture that secures political
unity, enables many people in Europe to ask: How do the values of Muslim immigrants
affect the unity of the nation? Many non-Muslims express anxiety because of their belief
that ‘‘Islam’’ does not negotiate with ‘‘non-Islam.’’ One response to that has been to insist
that both in the past and today many Muslimshavenegotiated with non-Muslims, and
haveadapted to life in polities ruled by non-Muslims—especially in colonial countries.
But beyond such attempts at liberal reassurance it can be argued that even in liberal
societies politics is not merely about toleration and adjustment. Because of the emphasis
on autonomy in modern secular society, democratic politics is also about resisting power
that demands adjustment to privileged norms, about exerting pressure to alter laws that
underwrite social conditions regarded as unjust or unreasonable. The liberal claim that
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