Muslim Professionals Leaving France Amid Rising Discrimination, Study Finds

The book "France, you love it, but you’re leaving it" sheds light on Muslim talents who have decided to leave France due to discrimination, particularly in employment and racism. This book investigates the silent exile of Muslim executives from France and points to "a French exception" that is "first and foremost institutional, political". "France stands out for its reluctance, even hostility, to recognize the specificity of Islamophobia as a form of racism, even though it is home to the largest Muslim group within the European Union," say the authors Olivier Esteves, professor of universities (University of Lille), specialist in the English-speaking world, ethnicity and immigration; Alice Picard, agrégée teacher of economic and social sciences and associate researcher at the Arènes laboratory (UMR 6051) and Julien Talpin, research director at the CNRS (Ceraps, University of Lille), specialist in racism and commitment in working-class neighborhoods.

They mention a second French exception. "While anti-Muslim discrimination and acts are the highest in Europe, it is also the country where the consideration of the phenomenon by the public authorities is the least proactive, if not the organizations that seek to remedy the problem that are themselves fought against," the authors note. Interviewed by Saphirnews, the political scientist Haoues Seniguer explains further: "In order not to have to face the reality of discrimination in France, in order not to have to assume the symbolic cost of a real consideration of the discrimination affecting our fellow citizens of Muslim faith, we have political and media actors who refuse to face it, as if to convince themselves that everything is fine".

"A third French exception lies in the centrality in the French public debate of ’secularism’ as a discursive weapon targeting Islam," the researchers write. This includes the ban on the veil, the burkini, the abaya, etc. which crystallizes tensions.