Integrating Islam: Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France by Jonathan Laurence, Justin Vaisse, Justin Vaisse

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Synopsis

France is home to nearly 5 million Muslims, roughly half of whom are French citizens. While the nation has successfully integrated waves of immigrants in the past, this new influx poses a variety of daunting challenges, particularly when viewed against the backdrop of growing Islamic fundamentalism worldwide. Because of the size of its Muslim population and its universalist definition of citizenship, France provides a good test case for the encounter between Islam and the West. Peaceful and successful integration of Muslims into Western societies is more critical than ever before. In this book, Jonathan Laurence and Justin Vaisse offer extensive and original insights into how such integration can be fostered in a diverse, secular democracy.

Many in France view the growing role of Muslims in their society with a jaundiced eye, as do others elsewhere, suspecting that new Muslim political and religious networks are a threat to European rule of law and the French way of life. Not surprisingly, however, the reality of the situation is far too complicated to be captured by slogans and slurs. INTEGRATING ISLAM examines the complex reality of Muslim integration in France-its successes, failures, and future challenges.

Laurence and Vaisse paint a comprehensive and nuanced portrait of the French Muslim experience, from intermarriage rates to socioeconomic benchmarks. They pay special attention to public policies enacted by recent French governments to encourage integration and discourage extremism--for example the controversial 2004 banning of headscarves in public schools and the establishment of the new French Council of the Muslim Religion. Despite the serious problems that exist, the authors foresee the emergence of a religion and a population that feel at home in, and at peace with, French society--a "French Islam" to replace "Islam in France."

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris - Farhad Khosrokhavar

"This book is a must for many reasons. The authors illustrate how Muslims are being integrated into French society and how exclusion and marginality are pushing a few of them into radicalism and terrorism. In a single work it condenses the many sides of the 'Muslim question' within France and, in some ways, Europe overall."

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Biography

JONATHAN LAURENCE is an assistant professor of political science at Boston College and an affiliated scholar at the Center on the U.S. and Europe at the Brookings Institution.

JUSTIN VAISSE is a French historian, an adjunct professor at Sciences-Po (Paris) and an affiliated scholar at the Center on the U.S. and Europe at the Brookings Institution.