French Islamophobia is shaped by Islamic conquest history resting at the present’s doorstep.

Evidence

The French term “Islamophobie” first appeared in print in a 1910 book entitled La Politique Musalmane dans l’Afrique Occidentale Francoise. In that book, the author criticized the anti-Muslim views of France’s colonial administrators working in former Muslim-majority colonies such as Benin, The Gambia, and Senegal in western Africa. “Islamophobie” was also used in a biography on the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that was completed in 1916 by another Frenchman named Alphonse Etienne Dinet. The author dedicated his book to the brave Muslim soldiers in the French army who died in battle during World War I. — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 484 (#expands, via linked claim)

The factors that led to the law are more complex and cannot be reduced only to prejudice against Muslims. The French principle of laïcité is deeply embedded in modern French identity and reflects an overall tendency to privatize all forms of religious expression. Moreover, there is a longer history of the government fighting to exclude religious expression and symbols from public schools, dating back to the late nineteenth century and the Third Republic’s campaign to rid schools of significant Roman Catholic influence. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 613 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: European Islamophobia is more layered because it rests on living history of Islamic conquest.; Islamophobia began as colonial administrators’ anti-Muslim views across French west Africa — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 484; French secularism and anti-Catholic school history predate and complicate anti-Muslim motivations. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 613 (+1 more)

Related

• Islamophobia began as colonial administrators’ anti-Muslim views across French west Africa (similarity 0.90)
• French secularism and anti-Catholic school history predate and complicate anti-Muslim motivations. (similarity 0.89)
• French Muslim presence traces to Algeria’s 1830-1962 colonial conquest (similarity 0.86)
• French colonial justice policy tried to stop Islam’s spread by grouping Africans by ethnicity (similarity 0.85)
• France’s geographic proximity to Muslim lands makes its Islamophobia more layered (similarity 0.83)
• France feared a shift from Arabisation to Islamisation of minorities (similarity 0.82)
• France’s laïcité secularism now targets Muslim identity almost exclusively (similarity 0.81)
• French colonial rule of Algeria from 1830 to 1962 produced France’s present-day Islamophobia (similarity 0.80)
• Resurgent Islam within European societies fuels the same fear in France as in Britain (similarity 0.80)
• French Islamophobia predates the War on Terror and traces to Algerian colonialism (similarity 0.79)
• Fear of extremist propaganda drove colonial surveillance expansion in French West Africa (similarity 0.79)
• French establishment shifted from denouncing to embracing the Muhammad cartoons by 2020 (similarity 0.79)
• Islamophobia’s coinage predates 1991 and is contested (similarity 0.78)
• Crisis circumstances expose laïcité as a mask for Islamophobia (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Islamophobia began as colonial administrators’ anti-Muslim views across French west Africa #expands (0.70) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 484
• French secularism and anti-Catholic school history predate and complicate anti-Muslim motivations. #complicates (0.60) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 613