Républicanisme critique vs républicanisme conservateur : repenser les « accommodements raisonnables »

Résumé 0

A re-examination of two heavily covered 2008 legal battles – the “virginity” and “burqa” affairs – illustrates the capacity of the secular spirit to resist the religious spirit in France. These two affairs served as occasions for confirming and consolidating the republican consensus that had in 2004 been forged over the law prohibiting the wearing of religious symbols in public schools. This consensus places strict limits on the recognition of cultural and religious (especially Muslim) religious particularisms in the Republic. Some of its ambiguities, however, are worth unpacking – in particular, the confusion between arguments drawn from republican law and those drawn from French culture. In contrast to this conservative republicanism, critical republicanism takes care not to posit that the institutions and norms specific to a particular community – up to and including that of the French Republic – are necessarily in keeping with republican principles. While it is absent from the Stasi Commission Report (France 2003), a similar line of reasoning can be found in the Bouchard-Taylor Report, which offers a republican justification for certain practices based on “reasonable compromises” (Québec 2008).