ISLAMOPHOBIA REPORT

EUROPEAN ISLAMOPHOBIA REPORT 2015
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The year 2015 was chronologically framed by two events taking place in France
but whose resonance was instantly global: the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks on 7
January and the Paris and Saint- Denis attacks on 13 November. These tragic events
fuelled an already widespread Islamophobic feeling in a country that has the largest
Muslim group in Europe. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks, an inclusive public
discourse laid emphasis on the need not to confuse Muslims in general and the tiny
minority of terrorists. Yet, after 13 November, public authorities, notably by raiding
mosques, Muslim associations and by targeting certain imams, bolstered the by now
largely shared view that Muslims are a security issue in the country. Despite this
distinction between January and November, it is clear that assaults against Muslims,
mosques and Islamophobic discourse more generally skyrocketed both after the
Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan attacks.
The national context in which these events are set is ominous: an ever-growing
far right with a Front National setting the tone of the political debate, a large number
of Islamophobic bestsellers weighing heavily on public debate, a further entrenched
urban and schooling segregation jeopardising national cohesion (ten years after the
2005 urban disturbances) and, just as worryingly, a French articulation of secularism
(laïcité) which is promoted by many as a bulwark against Islam (i.e. the belief that
religion should be excluded from public space altogether).
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