Laïcité, a Struggle at the Summit — 2013 CICNS Interview with Raphaël Liogier (1/4)

Raphaël Liogier is a French political scientist and sociologist of religion — at the time of this interview, director of the Observatoire du religieux and professor at the Institut d’études politiques d’Aix-en-Provence. In this first part of the 2013 CICNS interview, recorded at the release of his book « Souci de soi, conscience du monde », he describes a “struggle at the summit” of the French State — between the field ministries, which see the actual scale of religious minorities, and the laïcité ideologues at Matignon — and voices his support for the CICNS proposal of an independent observatory of spiritual minorities.

CICNS video interview, part 1 of 4. (English translation of the interview transcript, machine-transcribed from the CICNS YouTube channel, where the video was published on 1 July 2013, and cleaned before translation.)

[Interviewer]: Raphaël Liogier is a political scientist and a sociologist of religions. Since 2006 he has been director of the Observatoire du religieux and a university professor at the Institut d’études politiques in Aix-en-Provence. We met him at the release of his book « Souci de soi, conscience du monde ». He explains that a profound mutation of beliefs and of knowledge is under way and is silently changing our world. A modernity that imposes a new rhythm of life, new rules of the game. But strangely, this does not fail to displease the very defenders of that modernity, such as laïcité — a modernity in potentiality born of the age of the Enlightenment.

[Liogier]: It is the defenders of modernity who, in the end, sabotage modernity. And the expression par excellence of one part of modernity, which is the liberty to manifest oneself, the freedom of expression and of conscience — characterized, in the religious domain, by the freedom of worship, protected by what in France is called laïcité —, well, those who end up defending laïcité are those who end up taking part in its destruction in the name of its protection. For that very reason.

And we see it very clearly — that is why I had written that article in Le Monde — in what I called this sort of struggle, at the summit of the French State in particular, between the field ministries, which are in reality-in-action, and which see that a diversity exists, and that there may indeed be religious movements that are dangerous, but that they are extremely marginal, and that this does not call for a massive blanket policy — and that, at the limit, this massive blanket policy, with its sort of ideological bulldozer, may even prejudice the more precise targeting that could be done. But they immediately ran up against what I call today the defenders of laïcité in potentiality, who for their part are at Matignon and who are there to defend that ideology. That is the MIVILUDES — or the MILS before it. And who — I understand them; that is, I can understand the feeling they experience: it is a feeling of fragility, the feeling of being dispossessed at a certain level. And that conflict translated into that sort of staggering dialogue of the deaf, verging on insult, between the head of the Central Bureau of Religious Affairs (Bureau central des cultes) of the time and a number of parliamentarians, who wanted to hear that it was absolutely dangerous, that there was a general danger, growing, mounting, that there was a sort of secret strategy — and they kept saying: but no, that is not the case.

[Interviewer]: But how to explain that the services of Matignon are deaf to the feedback of the ministries, which see the reality on the ground? Raphaël Liogier sees it as the consequence of an anguish tied to the social and identity crisis that Europe, and France more particularly, is undergoing.

[Liogier]: Europeans have the feeling that they are no longer identical to what they have been — that is, that something is being taken away from them. They must find who is taking it away. So, at a given moment — right now, for example, it is the Muslim, this idea of Islamization —, there will be a process, there will be individuals taking something away from them, even if they are 4% of the population across Europe as a whole, a little more in France, but all the same — even very small minority groups, generally poorer than the others, who have access to the means of communication, etc. By a sort of extraordinary reversal, the weak becomes the strong. That is what this feeling of identity loss is. Within the feeling of identity loss, there is the feeling that the other — who is different because he is different, because he has chosen a different way of life — bears us ill will. It is not only that he has chosen a different way of life; it is that he assaults us by that way of life — and he assaults us deliberately. He does it on purpose; he has a plan, he has a project. And the sects are part of it. So the sects become not only a danger for those who belong to the sects, but a danger in the national sense of the term — in the sense of national identity.

You asked me the question about the 2000s — what happened. Because at the same time there was a greater rationalization. At the same time, there were people who stood up. Didier Leschi, of the Central Bureau of Religious Affairs — he did stand up against this paranoia. He who at the outset was rather in agreement but, observing that it was not true, what was being said, that one could be effective in other ways, wanted to try to change things. And there, he ran up against that anguish.

[Interviewer]: Raphaël Liogier supports the CICNS proposal to create an independent observatory of spiritual and therapeutic minorities. It would allow a more serene vision and the identification of the real dangers.

[Liogier]: It would be an independent authority. On one side, there would be representatives of the public authorities.

[Interviewer]: So, financed by the State.

[Liogier]: That’s right — in part.

[Interviewer]: And declared as a body of reference.

[Liogier]: Exactly. And with representatives of the public authorities — but really. And then with representatives of the anti-sect groups — that is, broadly, the victims’ associations —, which have their rightful place, which have the right to say what they have to say, to supply information that can be very precious. Very well. And then, at the same time, representatives of the said religious organizations that are sometimes called sects, who are there too to say what they do, to defend themselves, to explain, to answer in a way — to answer for themselves, to answer as to what they are. And then, finally, our group, the group of academics and researchers, who could set out their research, their methodology and what they have found, and it would be entirely criticized and criticizable by everyone. That is to say, we would then be facing an institution that would be capable, in the context of possible court cases, of supplying valid information. If there really is a problem — well, we would see. There is a problem? We would see where the problem is. We would not be in a sort of artistic blur, with lists drawn up more or less any old way — it must, after all, be acknowledged. If we were not in a period of identity crisis, and if bodies like the MIVILUDES did not feed on this European identity crisis, this loss of value, it is obvious that this type of body would have existed long since.

[Interviewer]: In this context of artistic blur, the CICNS hoped there would be a few lucid people, with a serene vision, who would go against the prejudices, beyond the identity anguishes. But is that possible in the current political atmosphere? Is there not a State propaganda maintained by the media?

[Liogier]: No, I do not think it is propaganda. I think it is deeper than propaganda. Because propaganda is not even at the level of strategy. Propaganda is at the level of tactics: that is, one has very short-term interests, and by propaganda one tries to put a certain number of things across. I do not believe anyone is trying to put anything across. As there is a deep identity problem within the population… The population is fragilized. There is an unemployment that is endemic today. There is not only the fear of losing one’s job but, I tell you, of losing one’s being, of losing what one has been, of losing one’s values — of losing everything. The sect, having this negative, tentacular image of those who, in the shadows, can take your own children from you and at the same time take, more generally, your values, transform you against your will, etc. — the sect becomes a danger and, obviously, I tell you, any person who took a position and had a critical mind about the sect would immediately become suspect of wanting to favour it and of wanting to be on its side.

[Voice]: Thank you.