French republic must fight for its core values
LAST week, France came under attack as never before. The three values — liberté, égalité, fraternité — which have been the motto of France since the 1789 Revolution were decimated. The terrorist attacks which killed 20, eight journalists from Charlie Hebdo, three police officers, six civilians, and three perpetrators were the most bloody that France had known since the 1960s.
They were carried out to avenge the Prophet Mohammad who, according to the three terrorists, had been derided and soiled by the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, and to punish France for its foreign and military policy in Mali, Syria, Iraq, and the Middle East.
These attacks were, therefore, a clear political act rather than an isolated killing folly carried out by self-radicalised and socially marginalised young men. As the news of the death of the three terrorists came out, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula, where it seems one of the terrorists trained in 2011, rejoiced in the killing of the Charlie Hebdo journalists and warned of further terrorist attacks against France.
However this is not our 9/11. It is much less than that — 20 dead versus 2,752 — and it is much more. Our buildings, no matter how symbolic, were not destroyed, but the fundamental pillars of our republic, our matrix, the fabric of our mation, was fatally wounded by Sunday’s march.
It would be grossly exaggerated to say that it happened overnight. In particular, equality among our citizens has come under constant strain under the last 40 years. However, freedom and fraternity were still considered as standing strong and holding up our republic. The terrorists and the reactions to the attacks bluntly exposed our delusions.
The first value that was killed was that of freedom of speech. According to article 11 of our declaration of human rights: “Free communication of thoughts and opinions is the most precious human right”. It is interesting to see the debates that have arisen in Ireland about the definition of ‘freedom of speech’, what it allows and what should or should not be said.
Many people consider that decency, kindness, or respect should be the limitations to the freedom of speech. These are extremely subjective values. In France, the offence of blasphemy was abolished in 1791. There must be no qualification of freedom of speech except by law. Once we enter the debate of respect and decency, we curtail and chip away at this fundamental right.
Whatever opinion or belief French law does not ban is allowed to be expressed no matter whether it is provocative, unpopular, or offensive to a majority or a minority. If you do not approve of this opinion, if it makes you uncomfortable, you have the choice to reply, express your own or ignore the newspaper with which you disagree. This is freedom; freedom of expression, freedom to debate.
The second value that died is that of fraternity, the idea that Muslim and non-Muslim French citizens can live together. More than 3.7m French citizens from all religions as well as leaders from across the world took to the streets on Sunday. This was the biggest mobilisation ever, in a country which has a culture of public demonstration.
The show of fraternity was there but it needs to remain in the public domain, at the top of the political agenda, as a key topic of the 2017 presidential elections if we want to rebuild a truly fraternal French society. Already, it has been reported that numerous French students of Muslim argued against the minute of silence in memory of the casualties because they did not relate to them and considered that the cartoonists had insulted Islam and Mohammed. At the same time, several Islamophobic acts were reported, such as the beating of a Muslim 17-year-old boy in Isère and hate writings on the mosque in Poitiers.
It is obvious that these terrorist attacks have highlighted how France is at an eminently dangerous crossroads, dividing along religious lines, building up a so-called Muslim community which in reality does not exist at all, rather than engaging in an intellectually honest debate on the place of Islam in the republic.
There is no Islamic political party, no more than 10 Islamic schools across the whole territory, no public demonstration in defence of a Muslim cause. This Muslim community is a myth and yet France is on the brink of choking on its fears of “the Muslim other” as manipulated by fundamentalists and xenophobic, inward-looking political parties who play with those fears for their political benefit.
The temptation to amalgamate Muslims and Islamic fundamentalists is very strong among French people. The climate of Islamophobia has never been more palpable. And it is spreading across Europe: Look at Germany and the anti-Islam demonstrations taking place on a weekly basis in Dresden; look at Sweden and the attacks against four mosques since October. Fear of Islam and how it fits in our Western societies cannot be denied.
All the more reason to focus on fraternity and answer the fears in a respectful, inclusive, and democratic manner rather than cede to the temptation of exclusion. Politicians sensed the immense danger. President François Hollande and predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy were exemplary in their condemnation of the barbaric act and their appeals for calm and cohesion, while not mentioning once the name of the religion Islam so as not to stigmatise it.
However, the call for a republican march on Sunday — including many European leaders but excluding Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front party — already brought back in the game the spark of political calculation instead of national, republican, and fraternal unity in the face of terror.
Finally, I believe that the attacks put a definitive end to the belief that all French citizens are (more or less) equal. This republican value of equality and, therefore, of social ascension through merit, no matter your background or financial means, thanks to the republic’s support services disintegrated slowly over the last 40 years.
I would argue that the development of a political discourse revolving around national identity rather than the “living together” and targeting a community, namely the Muslims, as well as any non-white citizen have embedded a strong feeling of injustice and exclusion among young people.
Those citizens are French and yet are made feel of second-rank by the police, politicians, and fellow “white” citizens who assume they are immigrants because they are not white. How to expect allegiance to the values of a republic which constantly belittles you?
Muslims are constantly asked in the media to strongly denounce the barbaric acts that are committed in the name of Islam while demonstrating their allegiance to the French republic. Nothing of the sort is expected of thenon-Muslim French citizens.
Rather than fuelling the debate with hatred and anger, we, the citizens and politicians of France, need to give birth to values of liberté, égalité, fraternité reconfigured for our globalised, multicultural and multi-religious French Republic. Democracy is genuinely at stake.
If we do not fight for our values which were so dear to Charlie Hebdo, we might as well have killed those journalists ourselves.
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