Islam tests French secularism

On Friday, France is marking 100 years since the separation of Church and State. With Islam on the rise in the restive suburbs, French-style secularism is being questioned. Concluding a series on French Muslims, Henri Astier asks whether it can remain a core value of the Republic.
To outside observers, French secular laws can work in mysterious ways.
Consider the country's top two religions. One, bringing together six million faithful, is thriving: converts are joining all the time and prayer halls are springing up.
The other is languishing. The number of preachers has halved in 40 years. With dwindling congregations, places of worship are inexorably closing down.
Yet no public money can go to the first, while millions of euros are spent every year on maintaining buildings the second no longer needs.
The reason is that under the 100-year-old law that founded modern French secularism, the state offered to take over the churches' existing buildings, while cutting all others' ties.
The French Catholic Church - the foundering religion described above - eagerly accepted the offer. Islam - the new, thriving faith - was not there to do so.
Concentrated in poor suburbs of Paris, Lille, Lyon, Marseille and other cities
Many conclude that the 1905 law is in serious need of updating.
"It should be revised to allow the central government or local authorities to contribute to the construction and the upkeep of mosques or pagodas," Manuel Valls, an MP for the socialist party, told the BBC News website.
Mr Valls, who has written a book entitled La Laicite en face (Looking Secularism in the Face), says such a revision would be only fair.
Above all, it would help counter what he views as a real threat to the Republic: meddling by outsiders from Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries.
"A change [in the 1905 law] would prevent mosques being financed by foreign powers - notably the Wahhabi kingdom," Mr Valls says.
The socialist MP is not alone. Calls to amend the law on the separation of Church and State are getting louder, and transcend party politics.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, a popular conservative, supports reform for much the same reasons as Mr Valls.

FRENCH ISLAM

Second largest religion
Five million Muslims (estimate)
1,600 places of worship
35% Algerian origin (estimate)
25% Moroccan origin (estimate)
10% Tunisian origin (estimate)

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BBC News, 9 de Dezembro de 2005