Islamophobia in France: The Construction of the "Muslim Problem"

Description

In 2004 France banned Muslim women from wearing veils in school. In 2010 France passed legislation that banned the wearing of clothing in public that covered the face, mainly to target women who wore burqas. President Emmanuel Macron has stated that the hijab is not in accordance with French ideals. Islamophobia in France takes many forms, both explicit and implicit, and often appears to be sanctioned by the governing bodies themselves. These cultural biases reveal how the Muslim population acts as a scapegoat for the problematic status of immigrants in France more generally. Islamophobia in France is an English translation of Abdellali Hajjat and Marwan Mohammed’s Islamophobie: Comment les e´lites franc¸aises fabriquent le “proble`me musulman.” In this groundbreaking book, Hajjat and Mohammed argue that Islamophobia in France is not the result of individual prejudice or supposed Muslim cultural or racial deficiencies but rather arose out of structures of power and control already in place in France. Hajjat and Mohammed analyze how French elites deploy Islamophobia as a state technology for contesting and controlling the presence of specific groups of postcolonial immigrants and their descendants in contemporary France. With a new introduction for U.S. readers, the authors unpack the data on Islamophobia in France and offer a portrait of how it functions in contemporary society. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Realities of Islamophobia Chapter 1. Islamophobia as a Social Ordeal Chapter 2. Measuring Islamophobia Chapter 3. From Negative Opinions to Discriminatory Acts Part II. A History of the Concept of Islamophobia Chapter 4. From Anti-Orientalism to the Runnymede Trust Chapter 5. Academic Research Part III. The Construction of the "Muslim Problem" Chapter 6. The Postcolonial Immigration "Problem" Chapter 7. (Lack of) Knowledge about Islam Chapter 8. The Islamophobic Political Cause Chapter 9. Legal Discrimination by a Capillary-Like Process Chapter 10. The Depoliticization of Violence and the Politics of Compensation Part IV. Compiling an “Anti-Muslim Archive” Chapter 11. Construction and Circulations of European Representations of Islam and Muslims Chapter 12. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia Part V. Islamophobia: Denial versus Recognition Chapter 13. TheDenial of Islamophobia Chapter 14. The Struggle for the Recognition of Islamophobia Chapter 15. Lawyers in the Fight against Islamophobia Conclusion. Against Islamophobic Hegemony Notes