Evaluating Assertive Secularism: Laicity in France and Quebec
In 2019, Quebec’s premier Francois Legault passed Bill 21, effectively banning state workers in a position of authority, including teachers, from wearing religious symbols while working. Similarly, France has implemented policies based on its law on secularism (1905), that prohibit all state workers and students from wearing religious symbols at work and throughout public school up to university.
Quebec and France have implemented measures of “assertive secularism” (aka laicity), a stricter form of secularism relative to the Anglo-Saxon “passive secularism”. Both nations’ policies on laicity have accumulated accusations for fuelling Islamophobia, which have provoked outrage. However, democratic majorities in both francophone societies have supported the principle, as Legault’s recent re-election and French polls illustrate.
Some believe the purpose of laicity is to unite different-minded individuals under an ideologically neutral umbrella, while others describe it as “chauvinist state-sanctioned secularism”
Historically, clergical authorities in both nations have held a “stranglehold over public institutions” for centuries, pushing leaders to insulate state affairs from religious influence. In Quebec, the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, which secularised institutions like the education system, was seen as a necessary step towards modernity and the establishment of a welfare state. In France, the 1905 law marked the separation of Church and State, and the end of a struggle dating back to the 1789 French Revolution.
Political Science scholar, Ahmet Kuru, describes the French fight for a secular democracy as the result of a confrontation against a former regime that was based “on a marriage between monarchy and hegemonic religion”. On the contrary, the influence of the Church in the United States is described as “nominal”, unthreatening; as the power of the Church did not have to be constrained, limits on “religious freedoms” in regards to “public order” were not implemented, as they were in France. If we try extending Kuru’s argument to Quebec, this would reasonably suggest that the policy of laicity emerged during the process of state-building to seal the secular character of the state, in response to widespread religious influence on the government.
Under this light, laicity is a “foundational” principle of the state, based on the exclusion of religious influence from public institutions.
In Quebec and France, the idea behind restrictions of religious attire for state workers is to display the state’s neutrality and “serve and protect the user of public services”. This can be illustrated by asking: “how would an immigrant of Palestinian origin, while contesting a conviction, feel in front of a judge wearing a kippah?”.
Daniel Legal, a French civil servant interviewed on laicity, states that civil servants do not have to “impose their religion” on public service users: likewise, they do not have to advertise their political views. The principle of laicity asserts the state’s neutral character and by law, prohibits a discrimination of an individual for his beliefs.
France and Quebec have implemented different restrictions to organise a religion-free education, Quebec’s restrictions only concern teachers whilst French restrictions include students as well.
The general idea behind the ban is similar though: protect children’s rights. French children are not considered to have a free will, and do not have the capacity to make certain decisions independently before the age of 18, and thus cannot consensually agree to display religious symbols. As an illustration, university students, who are assumed to be adults that make their own choices, are allowed to wear religious symbols while attending class. Bill21: Quebec supporters advocate that children’s rights to “be protected from any religious pressure” surpasses teachers’ rights to religious freedoms. Nadia El-Mabrouk, Professor of computer science at Udem, who grew up Muslim in Algeria, testified that the veil “conveys religious values that are against [her] values”, namely gender equality.
As laicity asserts the secularity of the state in the public sphere and offers children a religiously neutral education, it receives support from minorities who have had negative experiences with religion.
Laicity applies to all individuals in French and Quebecois societies, regardless of their religion, but has been accused of paradoxically excluding religious minorities from fully participating in public life, often leading to frustration and alienation.
Critics denounce laicity for facilitating further discrimination and abuse against women. The Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) calls out laicity in Quebec for its disproportionate impact on Muslim women’s access to employment and public services. Most of Quebec and France’s inhabitants are catholic or atheist, wearing less visible to no signs of religion. When a Quebec teacher wearing a hijab was removed from her position because “her appearance does not fit within the parameters of Bill 21”, Canadian political figures hurried to show their disapproval.
Evidently, laicity induces a number of individuals, mostly muslim women, to feel excluded from society, due to their religious beliefs.
It’s important to note that recent bans on full-face coverings are not based on laicity, both in France and Quebec, and veils such as the Niqab or Burqa are targeted. The argument is that they detract from the wearer’s ability to access public services and employment. Some state civil servants show signs of Islamophobia, calling out the Niqab or Burqa-wearing women as “being pushed into situations of inferiority”, which are incompatible with republican values. This implies some degree of exclusionary intent, and a limited, generally radical, understanding of Islam. As the three terrorists of the Charlie Hebdo attacks were indeed born, bred, and radicalized in France, there is a significant level of frustration towards France’s right to blasphemy included in its freedom of expression.
French President Macron, recently posted that laicity is about accepting that one’s faith shouldn’t constrain anothers’; the State guarantees freedom of belief.
Recent policies however, seem inconsistent with this principle, as some have deliberately targeted the practice of Islam in the public sphere.
Politicians like Legault or Macron propound that laicity protects “the freedom not to believe”, but do they protect the freedom of religious belief without fear of discrimination?
It seems unlikely that laicity, in Quebec and France, will disappear in coming years: going against public opinion and all of the civil servants who respect and practice the principle may provoke outrage. Even if it was modified so that it respected common values, it is likely that discrimination, alienation and socio-economic barriers will persist.
In France, racial profiling by the police, poor access to public services and socio-economic stagnation have plagued and caused a criminalization of the “cités”(low-income building estates built to accommodate a flux of working class immigrants).This has created a cycle of fear and hate between nationalist groups and marginalized “cité” communities.
Although Quebec has a smaller visible minority than France, most of its self-identifying members and even Quebeckers agree that systemic racism is “an accurate way of describing the level of prejudice” in the province. Ultimately, Quebec does not share France’s historical background of colonisation and immigration, and does not face the same socio-economic disparity, nor social tension. Quebec passed Bill21 only three years ago, and faces multiple challenges to laicity, although it seems likely that the notwithstanding clause will limit federal intervention.
In short, Laicity is not solely responsible for the discrimination and disproportionate barriers minorities face today, but it may nonetheless play a part.
Given that attempting to “fix” France and Quebec by ridding it of its “chauvinist” laicity seems unsolvable, should critics focus on socio-economic status of minority groups and barriers to equality instead? Pushing for effective anti-discriminatory measures, increased access to education and employment opportunities in french cités seems like a good start. Promoting diversity could also help and prevent exclusionary narratives from propagating.