The three departments of Alsace-Moselle are the great French exception. Having been variously French and German in the past few centuries - annexed, presumably for the last time, by Nazi Germany before returning to France after World War II - Alsace still has a German feel, with rounded edges.
While France is a model for the centralized state, Alsace-Moselle is different, especially on the question of politics and religion. Because the region was German in 1905, when France passed key legislation separating church and state - a policy known as laïcité, usually translated as secularism - the local government continues to involve itself in the established religions, providing a wide variety of subsidies and even religious education in the public schools.
Extraordinarily for secular France, here the state not only helps finance the construction of places of worship, but also approves the appointments of clergy and pays their salaries.
And there is the rub. Muslims are now the second-largest religious group in this region of 2.9 million people, and there is considerable debate about whether and how to extend to Islam the support given to other religions.
The questions range from Muslim education in the public schools to the size of a new mosque partly built along the banks of the Ill River, and even whether the mosque should be allowed to have a minaret.
Some believe that in the odd historical exception of Alsace, there may be lessons for how to better integrate Muslims into France, the country in Europe with the largest numbers of Muslims and of Jews.
"Muslims today represent the second religion of France, as well as of Alsace-Moselle," said François Grosdidier, a center-right legislator and mayor of Woippy, where one-third of the 15,000 inhabitants are Muslim. "The exclusion of the Muslims encourages them to build their mosques in basements and to seek foreign support, and we should avoid this."
Fouad Douai, in charge of trying to build Strasbourg's Grand Mosque, said Muslims there wanted the same rights as the other main religions - especially Islamic religious education in the schools and the chance to establish a theological faculty to train clerics, all in the context of a democratic, secular France.
"There's great hypocrisy in French politics," Douai said. "People don't name things as they are. Every time they see a swarthy skin or a Muslim name, you're oppressed."
Still, he said, Alsace "is a model for interreligious dialogue, which is much stronger here than in the rest of France," noting that the heads of the four established religions signed a 1998 letter supporting the construction of the new mosque, which is getting some public funds, impossible in the rest of France.
Of course, given its tortured history, nothing is simple here. The power and wealth of the Roman Catholic Church were a major target of the French Revolution. In 1801, Napoleon imposed a treaty on the Vatican, the Concordat, which regulated the practice of Roman Catholicism, giving the state power over ecclesiastical appointments and responsibility for paying salaries to the clergy, who had to swear allegiance to France. The Concordat was later extended to two Protestant churches - the Lutherans and the Calvinists - and to Jews.
Then in 1905, France abrogated the Concordat and other laws governing religious education and legislated secularism, establishing state neutrality toward religions and ending funds for them. (France does, however, consider places of worship built before 1905 as "cultural" edifices, and it heavily subsidizes their maintenance.)
In 1905, though, Alsace-Moselle was German, and the Germans retained the Concordat. After World War II, when French sovereignty was restored to Alsace-Moselle, France also maintained the local Concordat.
If in the rest of France the church is seen "as an obstacle to the formation of the republican state," said Jean-Marie Woehrling, a legal expert, "here the church is seen as part of the regional identity of Alsace and a protection against the Germans."
But the Muslims and their mosques are a post-1905 phenomenon in France, and there is nervousness about terrorism and confusion about Islam. The current mayor, Roland Ries, a Socialist, helped launch the new mosque, designed by the Italian architect Paolo Portoghesi, in 1998, but paid a political price.
For the mosque, the city provided a large plot of riverside land for 50 years at a reasonable price, and the city and regional councils are bearing 26 percent of the construction costs, treating the mosque like a Concordat house of worship. But the political debate was nasty. The Socialists lost in 2001, and the new center-right mayor revisited the project, giving a building permit only to the religious parts of the mosque, refusing to allow a study center and auditorium and forbidding a minaret.
(more)
Source: IHT (English)
While France is a model for the centralized state, Alsace-Moselle is different, especially on the question of politics and religion. Because the region was German in 1905, when France passed key legislation separating church and state - a policy known as laïcité, usually translated as secularism - the local government continues to involve itself in the established religions, providing a wide variety of subsidies and even religious education in the public schools.
Extraordinarily for secular France, here the state not only helps finance the construction of places of worship, but also approves the appointments of clergy and pays their salaries.
And there is the rub. Muslims are now the second-largest religious group in this region of 2.9 million people, and there is considerable debate about whether and how to extend to Islam the support given to other religions.
The questions range from Muslim education in the public schools to the size of a new mosque partly built along the banks of the Ill River, and even whether the mosque should be allowed to have a minaret.
Some believe that in the odd historical exception of Alsace, there may be lessons for how to better integrate Muslims into France, the country in Europe with the largest numbers of Muslims and of Jews.
"Muslims today represent the second religion of France, as well as of Alsace-Moselle," said François Grosdidier, a center-right legislator and mayor of Woippy, where one-third of the 15,000 inhabitants are Muslim. "The exclusion of the Muslims encourages them to build their mosques in basements and to seek foreign support, and we should avoid this."
Fouad Douai, in charge of trying to build Strasbourg's Grand Mosque, said Muslims there wanted the same rights as the other main religions - especially Islamic religious education in the schools and the chance to establish a theological faculty to train clerics, all in the context of a democratic, secular France.
"There's great hypocrisy in French politics," Douai said. "People don't name things as they are. Every time they see a swarthy skin or a Muslim name, you're oppressed."
Still, he said, Alsace "is a model for interreligious dialogue, which is much stronger here than in the rest of France," noting that the heads of the four established religions signed a 1998 letter supporting the construction of the new mosque, which is getting some public funds, impossible in the rest of France.
Of course, given its tortured history, nothing is simple here. The power and wealth of the Roman Catholic Church were a major target of the French Revolution. In 1801, Napoleon imposed a treaty on the Vatican, the Concordat, which regulated the practice of Roman Catholicism, giving the state power over ecclesiastical appointments and responsibility for paying salaries to the clergy, who had to swear allegiance to France. The Concordat was later extended to two Protestant churches - the Lutherans and the Calvinists - and to Jews.
Then in 1905, France abrogated the Concordat and other laws governing religious education and legislated secularism, establishing state neutrality toward religions and ending funds for them. (France does, however, consider places of worship built before 1905 as "cultural" edifices, and it heavily subsidizes their maintenance.)
In 1905, though, Alsace-Moselle was German, and the Germans retained the Concordat. After World War II, when French sovereignty was restored to Alsace-Moselle, France also maintained the local Concordat.
If in the rest of France the church is seen "as an obstacle to the formation of the republican state," said Jean-Marie Woehrling, a legal expert, "here the church is seen as part of the regional identity of Alsace and a protection against the Germans."
But the Muslims and their mosques are a post-1905 phenomenon in France, and there is nervousness about terrorism and confusion about Islam. The current mayor, Roland Ries, a Socialist, helped launch the new mosque, designed by the Italian architect Paolo Portoghesi, in 1998, but paid a political price.
For the mosque, the city provided a large plot of riverside land for 50 years at a reasonable price, and the city and regional councils are bearing 26 percent of the construction costs, treating the mosque like a Concordat house of worship. But the political debate was nasty. The Socialists lost in 2001, and the new center-right mayor revisited the project, giving a building permit only to the religious parts of the mosque, refusing to allow a study center and auditorium and forbidding a minaret.
(more)
Source: IHT (English)
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