Religious freedom in France: Be between the devil and the deep blue sea?

This paper is related to the issue of minority religions and religious freedom, and more particularly, to the restrictions imposed on minority cults in Europe. It shows how orthodox Jews in France behave toward Muslims when it comes to laïcité: they may agree on the fact that religious freedom is under a secular assault, but they don’t join forces. The main interest of this paper is to show that even though laïcité is perceived as a threat for religion and religious freedom, it is not enough to prompt an interfaith solidarity between orthodox Jews and Muslims. Facing some policies measures, Orthodox Jews and Muslims may share the same observation that religious praxis in the French society has been threatened by the notion of laïcité. Indeed, be it the prohibition for people working in the public service to wear religious signs, exams on holy days, or debates on banning circumcision or ritual slaughtering, orthodox Jews and Muslims may feel specifically targeted, or even prevented from practicing the way they need to. Though, those religious actors don’t come together to speak up in favour of a broader religious freedom. They rather opt for an every-man-for-himself-approach, without a common line of actions. At best forms of sympathy or collusion can be seen. So each group resorts to its own repertoire of actions: while orthodox Jews bank on being discreet, orthodox Muslims are more vocal and put forward theoretical arguments, on the basis of a stigmatized Islam and an laïcité vehemently hostile to religions. Through which framing process are those religious actors coming to reject laïcité as it is experienced nowadays? Is this process common to these two groups? Why do these religious minorities don’t stand together whereas they share pretty much the same analysis as to religious freedom being jeopardized in France? Does this lack of alliance tell us something about the intensity of the imposed restrictions? This presentation is based on an ongoing PhD project. It encompasses around 80 semi-structured interviews with orthodox Jews in France, as well as participant and non-ethnological observations during classes and events of communities, and the analysis of French orthodox newspapers and websites. It will show that orthodox Jews don’t ally in with Muslims against secular policy measures because both of them are seen as an existential threat. To go even further, it proves that laïcité is used as a category of public action, in the wake of Islam attracting more visibility. On analyzing restrictions imposed on religious praxis, this presentation resorts to researches on secular governance of religion [KOENIG; MAR GRIERA; MARTINEZ]. On analyzing the strategies of social actors, it resorts to researches on sociology of activism and collective action [BENFORD; NEVEU; FILLIEULE]. Thus, on crossing these two approaches, it aims at studying orthodox religions as oppositions to other rationalities, from other religious tradition or secular public institutions.