The cultural turn in the sociology of religion in France

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 2004 by Jean-Paul Willaime

Is it possible to speak of a cultural turn in the sociology of religion in France as we do in other countries? This is the question that I address in this article. You will see that my answer is 'yes.' I am not so sure, however, that this amounts to a paradigm shift in the sociology of religion, in the sense that Stephen Warner uses this term (1993). In this respect, my answer--like that of the people from Normandy--is both yes and no.

I would like first to draw your attention to six recent changes in French society. These are:

1. The increase in the number of books, journals and newspapers, radio/TV programs devoted to religion. A good example can be found in the first issue of Le Monde des Religions (September 2003).

2. The efforts of public authorities--especially in the school system--to combat both the ignorance of and misunderstandings about religion. Hence, at the request of the Minister of Education following September 11, the Debray Report concerning the place of religion in the curriculum.

3. The growth in the study of religion on the part of both students and scholars. In the Department of Religious Studies at the Sorbonne, for example, there has been a significant increase in the number of students preparing doctorates in religious studies.

4. The interventions of the French government in religious matters. These interventions concern both cults and new religious movements (for example MIVILUDES--the Mission interministerielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les derives sectaires (2)), and the growing presence of Muslims (for example the debates surrounding the Conseil representatif des musulmans de France).

5. The creation in July 2003, on the initiative of President Jacques Chirac, of the Commission de reflexion sur l'application du principe de laicite dans la Republique. (3) The report of this Commission, dated December 12 2003, proposed that religious holidays such as Yom Kippur and l'Aid-El-Kebir should be public holidays in all French schools, but also that all religious dress and symbols that are "ostentatious," such as a large cross, veil, or kippa, should be prohibited in the school system. As a result, public debate has become heavily polarized, regarding both the Muslim headscarf itself and the law prohibiting all signs and dress that reveal the religious affiliation of the student.

6. Equally important in terms of public debate is the place of religion in the modern world order. Many people believe that the religious factor is a negative influence, following David Miller's observation that 80% of organized terror and violence throughout the world is enacted in the name of religion--the effect of September 11 (Miller 1994).

How can we analyze these facts and the trends they indicate? Do these facts and trends have consequences for the sociology of religion in France? I will be developing two main points in this article: the changing patterns of religion in France and the corresponding shifts in sociological approaches to this subject. In the first section, I will focus on the changing nature of laicite (see note 3), or what I call the secularization of laicite; in the second, I will examine the re-emergence of heated debates about religion at the turn of the millennium; in the third, the emphasis lies on changing understandings of the French state; and in the fourth I will concentrate on shifts in the sociological approach to religion and their relationship to the material already set out.

A CHANGE IN THE CONTEXT: THE SECULARIZATION OF LAICITE

In France as in other Western societies, (4) individuals no longer seek emancipation from clerical tutelage--that is already achieved. They have total autonomy in this sphere and in this respect are able to repudiate their former authorities. Similarly, in terms of society, there is no longer any need to escape the power of religious institutions. Currently religious organizations have little influence over French society--or to put this a different way, the process of secularization has already been effected. A new socio-religious configuration is emerging in which the religious, far from appearing in the form of a tradition resisting modernity, appears instead in the hyper-modern form of a tradition that prevents ultramodernity from dissolving into a self-destructive critique. Increasingly, religion provides identities and offers to individuals the possibility of social integration and direction within individualistic and pluralistic societies.

This evidences a shift. We moved from secularizing modernity to secularized ultra-modernity (Willaime 2004). It is precisely this evolution from a modernist certainty to an ultra-modern uncertainty that characterizes the present situation. Ultra-modernity is still modernity, but radicalized--a modernity disenchanted and problematized. This is to say a modernity undergoing the set-back of systematic reflexivity which it brought upon itself (Beck 1992). With this in mind, I have used the phrase "secularization of laicite" to underline the fact that laicite no longer functions as an alternative system to religion, but rather as a regulating principle for the pluralism of both the religious and non-religious convictions existing in civil society.