100 and 20 years in the past, on December 9, 1905, a regulation at the separation of Church and State was once promulgated in France. However for the reason that Revolution, the query of where given to spiritual minorities – on this case in the case of Jews, within the framework of the republic – has been debated. Those discussions, which in particular relate to the abandonment of positive spiritual practices, mirror present controversies referring to Islam and Muslims.
In his paintings Unfastened and Equivalent… The Emancipation of the Jews beneath the French Revolution (1789-1791), Robert Badinter underlines that by way of proclaiming “full citizenship of the Jews in France, on September 27, 1791, (the revolutionaries) their ideal, that of human rights, won over prejudice and political prejudice.”
At the eve of the Revolution, in truth, the Jews have been nonetheless topic, in various levels relying on their beginning and geographical location, to a discounted and precarious standing, dependent at the excellent will of the king. The query of whether or not and beneath what stipulations they’d be incorporated in the neighborhood of electorate is due to this fact acutely imposed by way of the convening of the Normal Estates.
In any case, in spite of the unfairness in opposition to the Jews that was once expressed even within the mouths or pens of the revolutionaries maximum dedicated to their motive, the Emancipation Decree gave them equivalent rights and get admission to to citizenship with none stipulations instead of taking the civic oath. For Abbé Grégoire, the emancipation of the Jews should pave the best way for his or her “regeneration”, in different phrases their assimilation; within the eyes of Stanislas de Clermont-Thonner, because of this, when given equivalent rights, the Jews will, because of the Enlightenment, be free of “their fanatical or abominable practices”.
Legislation of 1791 in terms of Jews. Creator equipped (no reuse)
However what’s placing, after we glance again on the debates of that point, is the level to which we discover their echo in present controversies over immigrant integration, secularism or communitarianism. Are the answers advisable these days nonetheless true to the foundations that impressed “this truly revolutionary measure”, to make use of Robert Badinter’s phrases, that was once the decree at the emancipation of the Jews? We will somewhat doubt that.
Assimilation, integration: endurance of issues
The query of assimilation is not raised – formally this is – in terms of the Jews. However a situation has been set for get admission to to French citizenship: “No one can be naturalized if he cannot prove his assimilation into the French community,” states the Civil Code, assimilation this is particularly evaluated when it comes to enough wisdom of “the French language, history, culture and society” and “adherence to the essential principles and values of the Republic.” Secularism is counted within the identify of those “essential principles and values” – “lack of assimilation” is incessantly invoked in follow to disclaim a naturalization utility because of behaviors or attitudes (dressed in a scarf, conception of social gender members of the family) which might be related to or attributed to the follow of Islam.
As for foreigners normally, the concept that that has emerged is that of integration. Theoretically much less concerned when it comes to renunciation of authentic belonging and particularism, integration become the respectable function of immigration coverage from the mid-Seventies.
Integration as prohibition: the Napoleonic syndrome
However the integration effort, for which the accountability fell at the public government, was once step by step transferred to the immigrants and changed into an integration order, beneath the penalty of endlessly keeping up a precarious standing, and even shedding all rights to stay.
Step one on this route was once introduced by way of Sarkozy’s regulation from 2003, which made acquiring a long-term place of dwelling allow conditional on evidence of integration. Nowadays, after a chain of legislative reforms transferring within the route of accelerating the strengthening of the stipulations – and not too long ago once more with the Darmanin Legislation of 2024 – each and every foreigner who applies for the issuance of a place of dwelling allow should signal a “contract on the obligation to respect the principles of the Republic” and any failure to meet the tasks signed leads to the withdrawal of rights or non-respect of rights.
How are we able to no longer recall to mind the reversal imposed by way of Napoleon when, reversing the issue of the Emancipation Decree of 1791, he made up our minds to situation the ownership of civil rights on earlier evidence of “regeneration” and imposed a probationary length at the Jews of Alsace?
The parallel with the Napoleonic generation continues. Let’s learn probably the most questions that Napoleon requested the representatives of the Jewish neighborhood, with the purpose of “testing” the power of the Jews to assimilate, with the implicit assumption that the limitations in their faith hindered this: 1. Is it permissible for Jews to marry a number of better halves? 2. Does the Jewish faith permit divorce? 4. Are the French within the eyes of the Jews their brothers, or are they foreigners? 6. (…) Are they obliged to admire the rules and to admire all provisions of the Civil Code? The remaining is as much as you. Such a lot of questions that the Nice Sanhedrin, assembly in 1807, will solution level by way of level, so as to display that the spiritual tasks of the Jews are certainly not opposite to the observance of civil rules.
The similarities with the philosophy underlying the combination promises demanded of foreigners these days are placing. The “Agreement of Commitment to Respect the Principles of the Republic” contains seven commitments together with admire for equality between men and women and admire for the main of secularism – which implicitly however obviously goals foreigners of Muslim faith or tradition.
We additionally recall the perspectives of Gerald Darmanin, the Minister of the Inside, who boasts of taking a style from Napoleon to prevent separatism, suggesting that the state is implementing on Muslims these days what Napoleon imposed at the Jews and no longer hesitating to verify:
“A good model for me is the Great Sanhedrin, which was convened by Napoleon in 1807 to confirm that there was no incompatibility between his civil code and the Jewish religion.”
Minority religions trapped in “republican secularism”
The query of whether or not and to what extent emancipation presupposes the abandonment of non secular customs was once mentioned even ahead of the Revolution, however finally it was once no longer obviously resolved. Surely, conflicts of norms between state regulation and spiritual laws aren’t explicit to minority religions, as proven by way of the stormy members of the family between the Republic and the Catholic Church throughout the nineteenth and a part of the twentieth century. However they’re essentially extra not unusual for the previous.
And in truth, Jews, like Muslims, nonetheless endure these days – albeit to an unequal stage – because of their standing as a non secular minority in a rustic the place the whole thing is according to culturally dominant Catholicism and the place the purpose of figuring out how some distance “reasonable accommodation” must pass is extra debated than ever.
Exceptions to the typical regulation are by no means self-evident, although some are extra readily permitted than others. A modus vivendi turns out to were present in positive spaces: authorizations for go away on spiritual vacations, in a context the place the prison calendar of non-working days is modeled on Christian vacations; confession squares in cemeteries, theoretically prohibited by way of regulation, however in reality allowed according to ministerial circulars; ritual slaughter, known by way of the State Council within the identify of freedom of faith since 1936 and authorized by way of the Rural Code – an exemption whose sustainability, alternatively, isn’t confident.
However there also are issues of attachment. The 2004 regulation prohibiting the dressed in of any signal of non secular association in instructional establishments has already testified to the pressure of public government within the face of exterior manifestations of faith. We all know the level to which this regulation and its large utility – as evidenced by way of the controversies surrounding accompanied beginning moms or, extra not too long ago, the abaya – have provoked and proceed to impress debate. It’s going to additionally give a contribution – we do not realize it sufficient – to the a lot maligned communitarianization, encouraging the flight of scholars to personal Jewish and Muslim faculties.
Extra apparently, the problem of meals has not too long ago emerged as some other level of fixation. In The Republic and the Pig (2013), Pierre Birnbaum recollects that for the reason that Revolution, the query of Jewish assimilation has been raised in debates. In 1789, Clermont-Tonner said the objections directed on the Jews on this regard and in an instant rejected them:
“Our dishes are forbidden to them, our tables are forbidden to them. These criticisms are either unjust or false. Is there a law that obliges me to eat rabbit and eat it with you?”
If the present controversies over red meat, kosher or halal meals, which infrequently reverberate on the best possible stage of the state, don’t spare Jews, they’re principally directed in opposition to Muslims. We will be able to recall right here, amongst many examples, the accusations of “falling into communitarianism” made in 2010 in opposition to the Kuick chain, a few of whose amenities made up our minds to not serve red meat anymore, the everlasting controversies surrounding the composition of college canteen menus, or even the statements of the Minister of the Inside, which was once surprised by way of Darman20, the presence of Darman20. halal sections in supermarkets and concluding: “This is how it begins, communitarianism.”
The threat of communitarianism: double requirements?
Who does no longer take into accout the well-known sentence of Clermont-Tonner: “We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation (…) They must form neither a body politic nor order in the state (…) They must be refused any community institution and any special law”?
To start with look, one would possibly suppose that the present condemnation of “communitarianism”, stigmatized as incompatible with the “republican model”, is an extension of the foundations introduced on this method. What’s placing, alternatively, is the ambivalent angle of public government on this regard, which is especially mirrored within the distinction between what’s given to Jews and what’s denied to Muslims.
Function on this admire is the respectable place known by way of the Consultant Council of Jewish Establishments of France (CRIF) and the egalitarian discussion it leads with the state government, whose reputation is surely by contrast to the fierce and repeatedly repeated condemnations of Muslim communitarianism.
Particularly for the reason that suspicion of “communist” deviation starts very early, in the case of Muslims, as a result of easy customs of get dressed – or dressed in a beard – might be interpreted, if vital, no longer as a sound expression of non secular freedom, however as a door that opens to the ethnicization of French society, undermining the rules of the “republican model”. A “republican model”, extensively fancied however brandished as a rhetorical weapon to justify the tightening of militant secularism introduced as the one antidote to the hazards of communitarian glide.
This newsletter is taken from the intervention of Danielle Lochak throughout the convention in honor of Robert Badinter, on October 8, 2025 on the College of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.
