It all started in 1989. 35 years of the crisis of national and religious identity in France

The article examines the origins of the crisis of national and religious identity in France caused by the gradual spread of Islam in the country and the religious radicalization of young people. Among other things, the author examines the socio-economic factors that contributed to the change in the structure of the French economy in the 1970s, the end of the so-called "glorious thirty years", the growth of youth unemployment, which eventually led to the fact that the "zones of priority urbanization" created in the years of post-war economic growth in the suburbs of large cities turned into "zones of sensitive urbanization" with a predominant migrant population. Attention is also paid to the sharp rise in oil prices in the 1970s, which, on the one hand, changed the state of the European economies for the worse, and, on the other hand, brought additional revenues to oil-producing countries and allowed Saudi Arabia to invest in the Muslim communities of Europe, primarily France. The article is based on modern French historiography and documents from the archive of the French Foreign Ministry, which allow us to trace the genesis of the formation of the crisis of national and religious identity in modern France. The author concludes that the main events took place in 1989. First of all, we are talking about Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa calling for the murder of British writer of Indian origin Salman Rushdie. Up to this point, it was believed that fatwas issued in different parts of the Islamic world apply only to the territory to which the spiritual authority of its author extends. However, Ayatollah Khomeini made his fatwa universal. Europe was named a territory where Islam is spreading, and Muslims in it ceased to be migrants and, accordingly to the Ayatollah's logic, received the full right to demand the extension of Sharia law to European territory. And the subsequent scandal with the wearing of religious clothing at the college of the city of Creil in September-October 1989 caused a wide discussion in France about the spread of Islam in the country and for the first time put this issue at the center of the political agenda, thus becoming the starting point for the formation of a full-fledged crisis of national and religious identity in modern France.

France, Identity, Islam, Ayatollah Khomeini, Fifth Republic, School, Religion, Creil, Muslim headscarf, Crisis