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Ex-musulmans and Musulmans La?ques in Contemporary French Literature and Film

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Citation

McQueen F (2022) Ex-musulmans and Musulmans La?ques in Contemporary French Literature and Film. Contemporary French Civilization, 47 (2), pp. 199-220. https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.11

Abstract
Although several public apostates from Islam are well known in France, most are not French. More attention is granted to French musulmans la?ques: practicing Muslims who underline their support for a contemporary model of la?cit¨¦ holding that religious practices should be restricted to the private sphere. Olivier Arnaubec¡¯s novel 2023. Le mur (2015), Xavier Durringer¡¯s film Ne m¡¯abandonne pas (2016), and Zahwa Djennad¡¯s novel Tabou. Confession d¡¯un jeune de banlieue (2013) reflect this, each deploying musulman la?que protagonists to communicate divergent visions of French Islam, while mentioning the figure of the apostate at most in passing. This may be because the figure of the secular Muslim can easily be appropriated to support the creator of each work¡¯s differing vision of the place of Islam in French society. Musulman la?que protagonists help further Arnaubec¡¯s racist rejection of populations racialized as ¡°Muslim¡±; the more insidious form of Islamophobia associated with the political mainstream seen in Durringer¡¯s film; and Djennad¡¯s portrayal of Islamic practice as already wholly French without needing further ¡°assimilation.¡± This article argues that the figure of the ex-Muslim is harder to appropriate to any of these ends, a difficulty which helps to explain the discrepancy in public prominence between the musulman la?que and the apostate in contemporary France. Bien que plusieurs personnes qui ayant reni¨¦ publiquement l¡¯islam soient bien connues en France, la plupart ne sont pas fran?aises. Plus d¡¯attention est accord¨¦e aux musulmans la?ques fran?ais: des musulmans pratiquants qui insistent sur leur soutien pour un mod¨¨le contemporain de la?cit¨¦ voulant restreindre les pratiques religieuses strictement ¨¤ la sph¨¨re priv¨¦e. Le roman 2023. Le mur d¡¯Olivier Arnaubec (2015), le film Ne m¡¯abandonne pas de Xavier Durringer (2016), et le roman Tabou. Confession d¡¯un jeune de banlieue de Zahwa Djennad (2013) reproduisent cette divergence: chaque auteur repr¨¦sente un ou plusieurs musulmans la?ques afin de communiquer des visions divergentes de l¡¯islam fran?ais, mais ne fait r¨¦f¨¦rence au figure de l¡¯apostat tout au plus en passant. Ceci s¡¯explique peut-¨ºtre par le fait que la figure du musulman la?que se pr¨ºte facilement ¨¤ soutenir les visions divergentes que le cr¨¦ateur de chaque ?uvre souhaite communiquer sur la place de l¡¯islam dans la soci¨¦t¨¦ fran?aise. ? travers la figure du musulman la?que, on peut propager le rejet raciste des populations racis¨¦es comme ¡°musulmanes¡± d¡¯Arnaubec; la forme d¡¯islamophobie plus insidieuse qui ressort du film de Durringer, et qui s¡¯associe surtout ¨¤ la politique traditionnelle; et le portrait que fait Djennad d¡¯un islam qui est d¨¦j¨¤ tout ¨¤ fait fran?ais sans avoir besoin de plus d¡¯¡°assimilation.¡± Cet article soutient que la figure de l¡¯apostat ne s¡¯approprie facilement ¨¤ aucune de ces fins: une difficult¨¦ qui aide ¨¤ expliquer la divergence entre la visibilit¨¦ publique de l¡¯apostat et celle du musulman la?que en France contemporaine.

Journal
Contemporary French Civilization: Volume 47, Issue 2

StatusPublished
Publication date01/06/2022
Publication date online06/01/2022
Date accepted by journal06/01/2022
URL
ISSN0147-9156
eISSN2044-396X

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