Research raises alarm over Muslim flight, sparking debate

Their names are Mourad, Samira, Karim, Sandrine and Vincent. They were born and raised all over France, most of them have higher education. But they decided to settle in London, Dubai, New York, Casablanca, Montreal or Brussels…

Discriminated in the labor market, employees and stigmatized by their religion or their name. Because of their origin, these French people of Muslim culture or faith find abroad the social advancement that was denied to them in France. They also find there the “right to indifference”, which allows them to feel simply French.

Based on a quantitative sample of more than 1,000 people and 140 in-depth interviews, this unprecedented sociological survey in France brings to light, for the first time, a phenomenon that silently affects French society. The book was widely debated in The New York Times, The Times, The Guardian and other respected newspapers around the world.

By interviewing these minority elites, he details their upbringing, how they feel and are perceived as Muslims, the reasons for their departure, their choice of destinations, the experience of settling and living abroad, the perspective they relate to France, their prospects of returning. It is not just a brain drain that the work documents: the harmful effects of islamophobia They are revealed implicitly. Seen from the outside, they appear to constitute a French exception.

Professor Olivier Esteves is a French professor at the University of Lille specialising in Britain, ethnicity and migration. This is the research of his latest work, which has generated a debate in France and abroad. It is called “France, you love it but you leave it: research on the French Muslim diaspora”, published by Seuil.

This is a joint project with two other researchers. Alice Picard is an associate professor of economic and social sciences and a research associate at the Arènes laboratory. Julien Talpin is a research director at the CNRS, specialising in racism and neighbourhood participation.

In the midst of the election campaign and with the possibility of National Rally winning the election, we spoke with Professor Olivier Esteves about the impact of Islam, religion and racism on the French election campaign. This was the conversation with Clarion.

– Why have anti-Islamism and anti-Semitism become key issues in the campaign?

-The reality is that anti-Islamism is a very strategic way of legitimizing the Islamophobia of the French state, and of many people in France in general. Regarding anti-Semitism, the debate is different, and there is a link between the situation in France and that of many other states. It is necessary to silence the criticism of Israel on the subject of anti-Semitism: historically, France is very influenced by this issue. Because the French state has been traumatized by its active role in the extermination of the Jews during the Second World War.

-Is France facing an identity problem today? What does it mean to be French today?

I’d rather try to answer the first part of the question if possible. France is not very different from the United Kingdom. A country that was very powerful, with a large colonial empire, and which has to endure deindustrialisation. So secularism (laïcité in French) is a way for France to invent, collectively, a symbolic splendour.

-Does Marine Le Pen see a French Muslim as a threat to French identity?

-Of course. I might not say it so frankly. But it is clearly what the militants of the Rassemblement National say. This will disinhibit active racism in the streets of France. Traditionally, the RN has developed an ethnic, and not a civil, definition of French identity. Being French means being white, Catholic, and thinking that the church has to be in the centre of the city (it is a metaphor). Even if this dimension is opposed to the separation of the State from religions. Such a paradox seems problematic for Marine Le Pen, or her political friends in Europe (like Viktor Orban in Hungary).

-Le Pen wants to stop the construction of mosques, to ban the veil in public places, to ban the ritual sacrifice of animals on the day of the Muslim sacrifice. Isn’t this an affront to their identity or to the right to dress as one wants or to practice a religion? Of course it is. It will be interesting to see how, if elected, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella will achieve such reforms. Whether these reforms are compatible with the French Constitution. Because changing the Constitution is not an easy thing.

-But isn’t that also what Macron thinks?

-I don’t know what he thinks, but that’s the impression he’s given us for years. Macron’s personal career and social class confirm this impression. His wife does too; the Macron family is bourgeois from the provinces, reactionary, very white.

-Do you think that the law on secularism is racist and adapts to different eras to persecute a religion? First it was Catholics. Now it is the turn of Muslims?

-The way secularism is defined in France is racist, I think. More and more people speak explicitly about secularism, but they speak implicitly about Muslims. Muslims know this perfectly well. Comparing it with Catholicism in French history does not work, because Catholics dominated the French state, and they also dominated society. It is different with Muslims: they are originally immigrants, they work in factories, they constitute a demographic, social, ethnic, religious minority. It is very important to underline this point.

– Is this secularism a French specificity? Why do you think it is not understood by the Pope or by foreigners?

-There are many countries where there is a secular state, like the United States, with the tradition of Jefferson: ‘Building a wall between the Church and the State’, and Roger Williams, the pastor who was at the origin of the state of Rhode Island. Secularism means religious freedom. But in France it means emancipation from the Muslim religion, and prohibiting the Muslim religion in public spaces. It has never meant prohibiting Catholic signs in public spaces, because it is ‘normal’ to be Catholic in public spaces.

-Does this make Muslims flee to other countries? Do they go to England?

– Yes, it is the main theme of our book. Most of them go to England, and also Canada and very dynamic and Muslim countries, such as Dubai. But the United Kingdom attracts these people very clearly. It is not far away, it is very dynamic, and most importantly: different religions can be practiced in companies. There is no collective obsession against the veil as in France.

-Do French Muslims not feel French? Do they discriminate against them?

– Yes, the problem is that the French state has never, ever introduced a systematic policy to fight discrimination effectively. And many economists have shown that discrimination costs a lot of money. It divides society into two parts: those who are discriminated against, and those who profit from discrimination.

-Has France never assimilated its colonization and the results of the industrial migration that they promoted?

-Yes, I think so. The post-colonial dimension of these debates seems to me to be key. Particularly Islam and with regard to Algeria.

-Which Muslims decide to leave France?

-The important thing to emphasize is that the people who are leaving are an economic elite. People whose parents are working-class immigrants. But they are people who have now managed to leave the working class, with studies, with Masters, with university training. These people are quite religious. Not always. But most of them are.

What does France lose with this brain drain?

-It loses money, economic dynamism, and symbols that could have been useful to other Muslims in France, clearly. It also loses part of its reputation as a democracy. Because our book has been discussed in England, the United States, Canada.

– What is the solution to secularism, which is clearly hindering integration, mixing and identity in France?

-We need to free ourselves from this political issue. We need to understand that the secularism defined by the French State is quite incompatible with the concept of democracy. And in France we always talk about the Republic, republic, republic, and we don’t talk much about ‘democracy’.

-Jews also feel that they are being persecuted. Is this a real dynamic? Or a projection of the war in Gaza and the occupation in Palestine?

Yes, there are certain links between the flight of Muslims and the flight of Jews. But it must be stressed again that there are more than 5 million Muslims and about 500,000 Jews. There are ten times more Muslims than Jews. But fighting all forms of racism is essential. It is the moral duty of the French State.