Maghrebi Immigration to Europe: Double Insertion or Double Exclusion?

Abstract

In Europe, Islam became a significant form of collective behavior among migrants from the Maghreb, Turkey, Western Africa, and India during the 1970s, when that group of people decided to settle abroad and raise their children in what they considered, at the beginning, to be a lasting exile. In that way, Islam appeared as an instrument for building new identities and transnational solidarities for the purpose of negotiating with the states and societies of settlement. But that peaceful approach has been taken as an unacceptable challenge by secular societies, which are no longer used to dealing with religious values as a way of collective self-assertion. In a future open Europe that will include 5 to 6 million Muslims, it will be necessary to establish a new doctrinal framework of cultural pluralism that includes Islam.