No, We Don’t Have the “Right to Be Islamophobic”
After a speaker at France Insoumise’s summer school invoked the “right to be Islamophobic,” the French left is again at war over secularism. But the real problem is a failure to take sides with the victims of racism — and defend Muslims against attempts to stigmatize them.
A France Insoumise flag waves above the crowd in Paris on September 23, 2017 at a demonstration against Emmanuel Macron’s labor policies.
For political parties in France, it’s traditional to hold an université d’été — what English speakers might call a summer school. These are public activist meetups, devoted to lectures, debates, and rallying members together after the return from the holidays. For La France Insoumise (LFI) — the main organization of the anti-austerity left in France, whose leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, scored 19.6 percent at the 2017 presidential election — the 2019 université d’été thus ought to have represented an opportunity to regroup after the bad result in May’s European contest, where its 6.3 percent result fell far beneath expectations.
With Mélenchon himself away, touring Latin America, this was also an opportunity for LFI to show that it can get on with things even without the presence of its presidential candidate. Yet things didn’t play out as planned. And at fault was a recurring problem of the French left — Islamophobia.
The controversy came thanks to a talk by Henri Peña-Ruiz on laïcité — France’s brand of state secularism. The philosophy professor’s statement that “one has the right to be Islamophobic” had a truly explosive effect, sparking sharp criticisms against Peña-Ruiz and the fact that he had been allowed to speak at the France Insoumise event without there being anyone to debate — and challenge — him.
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