addendum
Reader comment on item: The 751 No-Go Zones of France
in response to reader comment: agenda, fact or analysis?

Submitted by daniel (France), Dec 6, 2006 at 02:53

I forgot that in his 2002 article Caldwell quotes a statistical study on religious habits in France :

The most recent study of religious habits was made by the respected Michele Tribalat of the National Institute for Demographic Studies in the early 1990s. To the extent that there has been a growth in practice over the past decade, her work will not have captured it. France's least observant Muslims, Tribalat found, were Algerians, among whom 10 percent of men and 18 percent of women constituted a religious-conservative "hard core." That is still double the proportion of French Catholics who practice their religion at all. Half of Turkish immigrants to France practice their religion, a figure far above that of Turks who remain at home.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/435tebxi.asp

This suggests my previous mathematical guesstimate is probably a bit high (as I expected) but not completely unrealistic, since the average may presumably be found somewhere between the "religious-conservative hard core" and the upper-end estimate of 50%.

The exact figure doesn't really matter that much, as it inevitably reflects a variety of different religious sensibilities. It does however help to restore some factualism to the discussion between those who indifferently categorize some 6 million French citizens or residents as "Muslims" and those who claim, on the contrary, that the vast majority of these individuals are secular apostates. It also helps determine whether the idea of "Muslim rule" in parts of France has any factual basis.

My own guess, based on experience and what few numbers are available, is that :

--roughly 1/3 of individuals classified as "Muslims" in France are in the regular‑to‑occasional category concerning religious practice,

--another 1/3 are in the occasional‑to‑none range but still respect the religious opinions of their observant friends and neighbors, follow Ramadan (more or less), abstain from pork (but not necessarily alcohol) etc.

--another 1/3 are indeed secular apostates without any real connection to the Islamic religion

Without any more reliable data, it's practically impossible account for geographical or age distribution, which makes it even more difficult to establish any meaningful correlation (as Mr. Murphy has suggested) between religious observance and birthrates.

Dr. Pipes' own hypothesis of "Muslim rule" in certain areas requires us to assume that the religiously observant tend to be concentrated in certain areas, an idea which Caldwell (op. cit.) lends some credibility to :

One incontestable conclusion of all studies is that, as neighborhoods become more monolithically immigrant, piety rises--or, to put it more precisely, hard-line religious conduct is more strictly enforced.

I have a hard time believing that Dr. Pipes' hypothesis of "Muslim rule" is actually the case, yet.

I remember that several weeks into last year's riots, de Villepin asked some local imams to intervene and call for an end to the violence. This drew harsh criticism from lay organizations like "Ni Putes Ni Soumises" which already work in underprivileged areas on a day-to-day, year-long basis to fight against violence and discrimination and couldn't understand why the PM chose to prefer religious "authorities" with dubious credentials. In any case the imams' "call for peace" didn't seem to have much effect, which tends to confirm my idea that anarchy is probably a more appropriate term than "Muslim rule" or "Dar al-Islam" for those areas in which the French state exercises only limited control.

It does show, however, that amidst the anarchy of the riots the religious authorities were perceived, perhaps erroneously, as having greater influence than the government. If pockets of "Muslim rule" do exist already in France, I'm not aware of them. The phenomenon may nonetheless become more widespread if the French government continues to rely on Muslim religious authorities as official representatives in areas which it does not control.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.