Brotherhood is gaining ground among French Muslims, by Florence Bergeaud-Blackler – L’Express

Examining the results, we observe a pronounced religiosity, particularly among young people and educated individuals. The relationship with truth and science does not depend on the level of education. Finally, there is a preference for an “inclusive” secularism, which would recognize the visibility and influence of religion in society, and fundamentally diverges from the historical conception of the separation law of 1905, adopted by the vast majority of French. This survey highlights the predominance of the Brotherhood movement in the conception of religiosity adopted by a growing number of French Muslims.

Almost the entire Muslim population, whether of tradition or religion, declares itself a believer, with only 3% declaring themselves atheists, while atheism concerns 32% of all French people. Among the 66% of French Muslims, two-thirds say they are both believers and religious, compared to an average of 12% among all French people.

The younger we are or the more educated we are, the more religious we declare ourselves to be. Three-quarters of Muslims under 35 are more religious than the oldest (58% of those over 50). 77% of executives and higher intellectual professions say they are “religious” compared to 53% of graduates below the baccalaureate level. Those who think that religion is important in all spheres of their life are more often from sensitive neighborhoods (35% in the city’s political neighborhoods) than elsewhere (20%), which is undoubtedly explained by community pressure.

Attachment to religion, and the feeling that it is more true than others, is a striking result of this survey. 75% of French Muslims believe that “there is one true religion”, compared to 17% of French people as a whole. This is the opinion of 86% of regular Muslim practitioners but also of 59% of non-practitioners.

Muslim creationism is one of the important results of this survey: 76% of Muslims think that it is religion that is right when religion and science oppose each other on the question of the creation of the world, compared to 22% in average among followers of other religions. These figures do not vary according to level of study and social status. We observe a difference between practitioners (84% support the creationist thesis) and those who neither practice prayer nor wear the veil. But it is remarkable that 53% of non-practicing believers are creationists.

There is a gap between Muslims and non-Muslims regarding the concept of secularism.

The first are overwhelmingly in favor of a so-called “inclusive” conception of secularism which allows for the visibility and influence of religion in society, breaking with the historical and republican conception of the law of 1905.

Two thirds of Muslims express their opposition to the 2004 law by supporting the wearing of religious head coverings in public middle and high schools. Only 28% approve of the ban on the abaya or qamis, compared to 81% of all French people. Executives and higher professions, those under 35, as well as Muslims who voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon are the most critical of the decision of the Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal. Even more, for two thirds of Muslims, this measure, perceived as stigmatizing, involves “clothing police” and “facies checks”.

78% of Muslims even judge that secularism as it is applied today by public authorities is discriminatory against Muslims and, curiously, two thirds consider it contrary to the founding principles of secularism. As a result, they request religious accommodations.

57% of Muslims support the possibility for young girls “not to attend swimming lessons for religious reasons” or even, for 50%, the right “not to attend lessons whose content would offend their religious convictions”. “.

They would like to authorize French athletes to wear the hijab during the Olympic Games (75%, compared to 20% of followers of other religions), authorize public financing of places of worship (75%, compared to 33%), authorize the wearing of clothing hiding their face in public (47%, compared to 13%).

The responses show that the clothing injunction to dress loosely, in accordance with the Islamic norm, is all the more respected when one is young, practicing, or of marriageable age.

Thus 64% of young women under 25 say they wear or have worn an abaya, compared to 27% of those over 50. Religious reasons are not exclusive of reasons linked to social pressures. Among them, 57% (and 80% of Muslim women under 25) wear abayas “to avoid being attacked, approached or feeling the gaze of men on their body” or “because of the pressure exerted by certain loved ones” or even “to avoid being perceived as immodest and indecent”.

Only 9% of Muslim women who have ever worn an abaya say they did so solely for reasons of fashion or practicality. This clearly means that the abaya is not a fashion but a garment for religious use intended to enforce the standard of modesty.

The majority of Muslims believe that their religion is important in their life choices: they eat completely halal for 85% (compared to 19% for other religions who conform their diet to their religion), they marry in accordance with the rules religious (which in Islam prohibit the marriage of women with a non-Muslim, and the marriage of men with a woman who is neither Muslim, nor Christian, nor Jewish) for 79% (compared to 31% for other religions) and they dress in conformity with Islam for 63% (compared to 18%). Cultural activities are chosen in accordance with religious values ​​for 59% (compared to 31%). Political choices are influenced by religion for 51% (compared to 25%) and finally religion intervenes in the choice of friends for almost half of Muslims (47%) (compared to 22%).

For fifty years, the Brotherhood movement has been characterized by its rejection of secularism and by the tendency of Muslims in France to confine themselves to a separate space which is expanding more and more. Inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, this fundamentalist missionary movement aims to establish a global Islamic society, the caliphate. It requires practicing Muslims to question themselves daily about the legality of their actions and to propagate Islam. Brotherhood, which has existed for less than a century, has been present in our secularized liberal democratic societies for more than fifty years. He does not advocate a return to Muslim countries, but rather the expansion of Islam by working on contexts to adapt democracies to the religious text (as opposed to a necessary reform which would adapt the text to the context).

* Florence Bergeaud-Blackler is a doctor in anthropology and research fellow at the CNRS. This year she published Brotherhood and its networks (Odile Jacob).