Muslim Girls and the 'Other France': An Examination of Identity Construction

National identity is the 'floating signifier' in the politics of culture and location among diasporic people residing in France. Constructed discursively as a precious, yet threatened, commodity, French national identity is a form of symbolic power that excludes in its very definition of inclusion by implicitly conflating constructs of culture with 'race'. Through this frame, I will examine the experiences of Muslim girls in secondary education who are asserting their national identity to negotiate the complex expectations of home, secular schools, and their 'cite' during a period in France when the notion of French identity itself is being transformed.Unlike the social movements of the 1980s that coalesced demands for citizenship with subjective, 'ethnic' representationsembedded in 'le droit a la difference' (the right to be different), this new generation is claiming additionally their ' francite '. However, being recognised as French is mediated by a set of relational conditions of which nationality is but one aspect. That is, having nationality is not the same as having one's national identity acknowledged socially when 'culture', recast as nationality, continues to dictate access to those trajectories leading toward social enfranchisement. This factor appears particularly relevant to first generation French Muslim girls of African descent whose experiences serve to broaden our understanding of young women in the Muslim diaspora.