L'Islam et la construction de l'Europe

Elements of Reflection about Islam in Europe Rémy LEVEAU Islam emerged in the seventies as an identity construct resulting from North-African, Turkish, African and Asian immigration. This religious identity cannot remain within the framework that has ensured religious pluralism in various countries since the crises of the late nineteenth century. In emerging amid a conflict-based European collective imagination, Islam is making claims for greater visibility which challenge earlier pacts. Secularized states with a Catholic tradition, such as France, find it harder to cope with this evolution than other countries with a Protestant background, where the role of religious figures in the public arena is more easily accepted. These claims for a religious identity appear as a will to take part in the definition of the standards and values on which European culture is based by transcending traditional Judeo-Christian references.