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Introduction
French Republicanism incorporates both liberal and communitarian dimensions, but issues of diversity have in recent years mainly been addressed through a communitarian symbolic framework. Over the last decade, the issue of cultural diversity has been regularly tackled in France through the controversial question of the Islamic headscarf, finally leading to the passage of a law, banning all ostensible religious signs in state schools. The objective of this paper is to analyse how French political elites have used the concept of laïcité (secularity) as a central notion of national identity in order to address the issue of cultural diversity.
I will first look at the general characteristics of this pivotal principle within the French republican tradition and show how it can be understood in the context of the intellectual controversy between liberalism and communitarianism as regards social integration in modern polities. The communitarian dimension of French republicanism appears in an equally communitarian interpretation of laïcité and manifests itself in a patriotic rhetoric. In this national-communitarian approach, the patriotic discourse embraces both the idea of the republic and the principle of laïcité . Indeed, even if this notion expresses important liberal requirements - freedom of thought, freedom of religion, State neutrality - an in-depth analysis of the Stasi report in the second part of the paper will show that its political use in the controversy on the Islamic headscarf emphasised the communitarian principle to reinforce the unity and identity of the nation. The opponents of the law propagated a convincing deconstruction of the arguments for the ban, but neglected to bring forward coherent and practical alternatives. The final section of this paper will elaborate further on the basis of two normative trends in the debate on cultural diversity often presented as attractive alternatives to the official national-republicanism, namely, multiculturalism and inclusive (or civic) patriotism. After highlighting the risks these proposals contain for individual freedoms, I will defend a radical version of liberalism, attempting, on the one hand, to avoid the possible dangers for pluralism and individual rights induced by approaches centred on collective identity, and, on the other hand, to substitute real emancipation and individual freedom for a simply cultural treatment of the integration of people of immigrant origin.
Republicanism and Laïcité
Laïcité : A...