Religion and religious discrimination in the French workplace
| Published date | 01 June 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1358229113493693 |
| Author | Deniz Kosulu,Franck Frégosi |
| Date | 01 June 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Religion and religious
discrimination in the
French workplace:
Increasing tensions,
heated debates,
perceptions of labour
unionists and pragmatic
best practices
Franck Fr´
egosi and Deniz Kosulu
Abstract
The visibility of religious identities in workplaces has become a recurrent topic of certain
public debates and tensions in France. It is generally the visibility of Muslim identities and
practices of Islam that are at the centre of these tensions. This article shows in the
context of French republican la¨
ıcit´
ethat religious issues are considered as private issues
that should not play out openly in the workplace, which is considered to have a more
public character. With a focus on the French labour law framework and religious dis-
crimination issues, interviews with elected politicians, religious leaders, unionists, rep-
resentatives of civil society organisations and legal experts show that religious
discrimination in the French workplace is a more complex phenomenon than it seems.
Discrimination of religious employees, in a direct or indirect manner, happens more
often than is officially reported in France. Many respondents suggested that a great deal
of religious discrimination is, at best, reframed as ethnicity-based or gender-based dis-
crimination. The article also discusses some recent examples of businesses that treat the
Universit´
e Paul C´
ezanne, France
Corresponding author:
Deniz Kosulu, CHERPA, Institut d’E
´tudes Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence, Universit´
e Paul C´
ezanne,
25 Rue Gaston de Saporta, Aix-en-Provence 13100, France.
Email: denizkosulu@yahoo.fr
International Journalof
Discrimination and theLaw
13(2-3) 194–213
ªThe Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/1358229113493693
jdi.sagepub.com
issue of religious diversity in the French workplace in a more pragmatic manner, opening
up more possibilities for reasonable accommodation.
Keywords
France, Islam/veil, labour law, La¨
ıcit´
e, private space, public space, reasonable
accommodations, religious discrimination, religious diversity
Introduction
France is a religiously diverse society, just as the other European countries described in
this special issue. It stands out, however, because of its permanent reference to the idea
of la¨
ıcit´
e, frustrating the public expression of religions and individualizing religious
identities, and which should be considered through its intrinsic link to the French repub-
lican history. In this article, we look at the effects of this particular legal and political
context on issues related to religious diversity in the labour market. More specifically,
we study the social, political and legal dimensions of religious diversity in French
society and analyse the perceptions of involved actors in relation to accommodating
claims by religious employees in the workplace.
France is a countrymarked by a strong Catholic tradition andhistory. About 65%of the
French population identifies as Catholic, of which 7.7%are regular churchgoers, 15.2%
casual churchgoers, 31.5%seasonal churchgoers and 9.9%non-practising (IFOP, 2010).
ContemporaryCatholicism in Franceseems to be more cultural than religious.Nonetheless,
some ofits more active practitionersgive the impressionof a minoritythat feels beleaguered
by an environmentthat they judge as destabilising(Tillinac, 2004). The recentmobilisation
of Catholic leaders against the ‘marriage for all’ bill isa good example of that.
Islam is the second largest religious affiliation in France, accounting for 4–5%of the
population. Most of these Muslims originate from one of the immigrant groups that came
to France after the Second World War. Three percent of the population, or about one mil-
lion people, are affiliated with Protestantism (IFOP, 2010). Protestant churches
(Reformed and Lutheran) are facing the rise of the Evangelist denominations, which
would account for about 395,000 individuals (Fath, 2005). France also has the largest
Buddhist community in Europe, numbering nearly 600,000. Five out of six of this group
originate from Asia. According to the Jewish Agency, there are around 488,000 people
of Jewish origin in France. Since the 1960s, with the arrival of Sephardic Jews from
Maghreb countries, the ethnolinguistic and cultural composition of the Jewish commu-
nity has drastically changed. Beside strong la¨
ıc components, it has experienced a reli-
gious revival both on the orthodox side and on that of liberal groups (Winock, 2004).
Then there are the Eastern Catholic denominations. Essentially, these are Orthodox
Christians (240,000) affiliated with one of the Byzantine churches of Russian, Greek,
Romanian or Serbia n character. To this g roup, more than 210,0 00 Eastern pre-
ChalcedonianChristians can be added, mainlyArmenians (180,000), and 45,000Egyptian
Copts (Roberti,1998). Then there are a numberof religious groups qualifiedby the general
public, mediaand intelligence servicesas cults. Among these groups, theoldest and largest
Fr´
egosi and Kosulu 195
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