As for other demands of the French muslim community, not pertaining to religion, I don’t see how these could be raised by the CFCM if you affirm the validity of the laïcité-principle.

Why would I endorse Lalami’s article, which defends veiled women and calls French hysteria over them a type of racism, if I was so anti-religious? I am not claiming to be the best person to represent Muslims at all (”born” Muslim, I am an atheist and stand by it.) But I don’t think generally speaking that people involved in political Islam are either, since they are a minority of the wider population. And in a country like France, the government is dealing with the entire Muslim-origin community through these jokers. Besides I think you can be of Muslim culture and background without being particularly devout (but this kind of shift, as happened with Christianity in Europe, scares Islamists.)

As for the old “praying in the office” argument I have, I still think it’s extremely unprofessional for people to pray in the middle of an office. Prayer rooms should be provided when employees desire it.

Yes, I’m familiar with your perspectives on being Muslim and pious. I recall our discussions about prayer in the office.

Which perhaps suggests that your faux-liberal ilk are not necessarily the best representatives of Muslim interests, as with people like you representing me, I’d probably be banned from praying outside my house, with some self-righteous french official assuring everyone it’s not a violation of my rights, because their liberals Islamists told him it’s not an issue for “normal” Muslims.

Yes, the “Islamist project” is recent. So what? It’s a phenomenon born out of a host of equally recent factors that I’m sure you can preach extensively about. It’s beside the point.

I don’t think having practicing Muslims (oh wait, they’re Islamists to you) representing Muslims in France means Muslim women will be forced to wear the veil or people herded into mosques. Alternatively, the type you favor will not give a crap if practicing Muslims find themselves, well, incapable of practicing properly.

One can be Muslim, and pious, without being Islamist. The Islamist project is a recent development and there are plenty of of practicing Muslims in the Arab world and in the Arab diaspora that don’t feel like they need to make their religion the center of everything that they are about. I think that most French Muslims are probably at least a little religious and that the completely non-religious ones are a minority. But even they deserve to be represented if the government is going to decide to address their community, and right now it is addressing them through a fringe on the official level.

The government is going to address the ones that don’t go to the mosque (or participate in other external signs of religiosity) through a minority of the ones that do. (And frankly, so many mosques in Europe have been more or less taken over by Islamists that it’s no wonder people aren’t going there.)

This idea that Islamists are the only ones who can represent Muslims is, well, a typically Islamist conceit. Muslims were fine being themselves for a long time before Islamists came along.