“Allāhu Akbar” and Laïcité in French Public Space

• In Event: Misunderstanding and Misinformation In and About French Politics

Abstract

It is commonly claimed that the adhan, or Muslim call to prayer, is not broadcast from minarets in France because of the French principle of laïcité, which protects public space, schools, and the state, from religion. This conclusion has been stated with such certainty as to make further examination of the adhan in France seem unnecessary or even inflammatory. But this explanation does not provide an understanding of why the Muslim community in France—proportionately the largest in Europe—has not pressed this as an issue of religious freedom as it has in England, the United States, Germany, and Sweden. What role does the adhan, and its effective silencing, play in French politics of belonging and laïcité, and how, precisely, is the suppression of the adhan as a religious sound reconciled with discursive normalization of ringing Christian church bells? We have a limited understanding of how the adhan, as a sound-object, is governed in France and what modalities of power are at play in maintaining a soundscape that corresponds to hegemonic aesthetic norms. This paper addresses these questions, using the adhan and its absence in France as a case study to examine a politics of silence. Drawing on six months of fieldwork in Paris, Marseille, and the central-French town of Puy-en-Velay, and interviews with French Imams, Catholic clergy, and municipal officials, it argues that silence in France structures citizens’ right to the city, and demonstrates that when it comes to religious sound, the principle of laïcité is applied not in the upkeep of secular space but rather in service of cultural protectionism.

Author

• Michelle Day Weitzel, The New School for Social Research