Islam in France: The Shaping of a Religious Minority

Islam is now commonly considered to be the second largest religion in France behind Christianity. Accepting this demographic reality has never been easy for many French citizens. Too often, discussions about Islam in France begin and end with a treatment of Muslims as a social problem. The West has stereotyped Islam as a strange religion, completely different from Christianity or Judaism, even though it is now firmly wellestablished within most western countries. Western perceptions are still based upon "essentialized" images of a violent and changeless Islam, holdovers from the colonial past. Though inaccurate, they still provide the basis for Western understandings of those situations that involve Muslims. Samuel Huntington, for example, still posits a static vision of Islamic civilization and a unique Muslim psyche that compels conformity to Islamic law in all places at all times-as though Muslims were a species unto themselves.