In France, post-Charlie debate hits a new level of vitriol: Yakabuski

Konrad Yakabuski on French debates.

Unless you know your French history, the country’s debate over secularism and freedom of expression can be difficult to follow at times. In Mr. Todd’s view, French secularism is really a form of “zombie Catholicism” and a manifestation of the country’s inability to live up to its officially pluralistic values. It’s one thing to stand up for free speech. It’s quite another to celebrate the systematic piling on of a disenfranchised minority. Some disgruntled members of PEN expressed similar discomfort after the organization recently gave an award in New York for “freedom of expression courage” to Charlie Hebdo.

Days before the release of Mr. Todd’s book, a 15-year-old girl in Reims was kicked out of class for wearing a full-length skirt deemed by her teachers to be in contravention of a ban on religious symbols in public schools. The girl had removed her Muslim head scarf before entering class, in accordance with French law. But her teachers did not like her “proselytizing” attitude.

“The personnel asks that students dress in a manner that is respectful of secularist principles before entering the establishment,” the school administration said after the incident hit the news. “If any students were invited to change their attitude and clothing, no one was excluded.”

This is the kind of radical-secularist overkill Mr. Todd finds so disturbing. “Let’s leave France’s Muslims alone,” he said in an interview published in the magazine L’Obs. “Let’s not do to them what we did to the Jews in the 1930s by putting them all in the same boat, regardless of their degree of integration. … Let’s stop forcing Muslims to think of themselves [only] as Muslims.”

A colleague warned Mr. Todd he wouldn’t have “a single friend” in France after his book came out. It’s looking like he was right.

For a different take on Todd’s book and his accusations of hypocrisy regarding those demonstrating their solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, see Le simplisme d’Emmanuel Todd démonté par la sociologie des « Je suis Charlie ».

And for a more sophisticated understanding of French laïcité, see my earlier post, Olivier Roy on Laicite as Ideology, the Myth of ‘National Identity’ and Racism in the French Republic.

In France, post-Charlie debate hits a new level of vitriol – The Globe and Mail.