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Many steps the government takes to supposedly protect ‘French Republican values, better ‘integrate’ Muslims or prevent radicalisation can often do the opposite.
Twenty years ago, the story that a bunch of teenaged French pupils had protested they were “shocked” by their teacher showing them a 1603 painting of five nude women would have caused hilarity across the country, not fear. “What are they complaining about?” would have been the universal guffaw. But the teachers at the Jacques Cartier secondary school in Issou, west of Paris, have known otherwise for years. The scenario that unfolded in a French literature classroom last week has happened many, m
On several counts, England is now on its way to becoming a secularist society. Nevertheless, there remain cultural differences that prevent it from embracing the French principle of “laïcité”.
Catholicism, ‘Frenchness’ and secularism are often conflated in French culture, a scholar writes, while non-Christian traditions are viewed with suspicion.