French specialist of religion and Islam, Bruno Étienne has passed away in Aix-en-Provence, France. In 1980 Étienne became director of the CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research), holding the chair in the Muslim World and became Professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Aix-en-Provence. In 1985 he founded “Observatoire du fait religieux” (Observatory of…
Many of the 8,847 private Roman Catholic schools in France have welcomed Muslim students. The country currently has four Muslim schools. While there are no national statistics, Muslim and Catholic educators estimate that Muslim students make up more than 10 percent of the 2 million students enrolled in Catholic schools. In more ethnically-mixed neighbourhoods and…
Pope Benedict XVI denounced fundamentalist fanaticism in his address to a variety of figures, including Muslim leaders, at the start of a French pilgrimage at Lourdes. Over the course of Benedict XVI’s visit to France, he has emphasized the importance of religion in shaping public policy, a stand which has enraged some of the country’s…
In this short summary of a recent study by the IFOP (Institut Français d’Opinion Publique or the French Institute of Public Opinion) published in La Croix on September 1st, based on a study of 3280 French Muslims between 2003-2008, 51% vote for the PS (Socialist Party). 26.8% of the rest of the French population typically…
According to France’s Minister of the Interior, there are currently 5 million Muslims living in its border, approximately 5% of which are regular practitioners. In their new book on French Muslims (Les Musulmans en France, _dition Robert Laffont), Bernard Godard and Sylvie Taussig estimate that more that 1.5 million are Algerian or of Algerian-origin. The…
