ABSTRACT
In current literature on Sri Lankan diaspora, crucial issues about religious transmission or the interplay between caste and gender have been mainly analysed in relation to classical refugee destinations like the UK, US and Canada. As a result, we know very little about the specificities of more recent, yet growing, communities in contexts such as mainland Europe. Since the 1980s, refugees from Sri Lanka have been living in France and make up the largest Hindu group. In recent years this migration, and more generally the South Asian migration, has radically transformed the French social landscape, leading to an “excess of alterity” (Grillo 2010). 1 One of the most significant consequences of new immigration flows has been a dramatic growth in religious diversity, which presents a greater challenge to French secularism. As Banchoff (2011: 10) has remarked, “the new religious pluralism poses difficult challenges to two basic democratic principles – minority protection and majority rule”. As such, Hinduism represents not just a minority religious tradition but a challenge to French laïcité.
