The place of deliberation in the interventions of Muslim actors in the public space in France

During the last two decades, Islam, as an issue, was put at the fore of the public debate within European countries. More precisely, Islam is built as a problem. Such a construction rises from the multiples interventions of a wide range of actors within the public sphere. Indeed, analysis’s from scholars, journalists, activists of experts try to address this issue by paying a special attention to exogenous or indigenous reasons including, for instance, the role of the media in the agenda setting, of the politics and more specially the rising of the extreme-right and populist movements, the interventions of the elites, the crucial role of the international context and, in France, for instance, the attacks in Paris while some others focuses on the new generations of Muslims as a key explanation. Furthermore, the issue Islam appears in numerous variations and issues along debate concerning secularism, place of the women, toleration, and security as soon as the best-known ones are concerned. Our paper tries to adopt an other perspective, attentive to the Muslims actors’ interventions in the public space. More precisely, we try to ask to what extent the inclusion within deliberative processes is seen as a relevant repertoire of action and a relevant arena in order to defend the interest of Muslims in France. The literature above the articulation of deliberative democracy and social movements can be sum up in two orientations: the first one, focuses on internal organisation of the global justice movement, or more generally, the internal organisation of social movements whether the second, following the huge criticism of deliberative democracy, raise the issue of the repertoire of action and relevant arenas. By using the material from the DELMUSNET project ““Public Deliberation, Network Analysis and the Political Inclusion of Muslims Living in Switzerland, France and Britain”, and especially the organisational survey, in France, at the local level, in the Lyon area, and at the national level, we aim at addressing, in a first part, the means used by Muslims organisations in order to intervene in the public sphere, and secondly, we will try to address to what extent the deliberation can appear as a relevant repertoire of action for Muslim actors who claimed on Islamic issues in France during the two last years (2014-2015).