ABSTRACT
Neo-Orientalism is still alive, as the success of Huntington's thesis on the 'clash of civilizations' proves. Muslims in Europe are also victim of the same substantialist approach. It involves a totalization effect by which Muslims are required to conform to Islamic Law because they are Muslims, or seem to be. The use of Islam in the political arena of Islamic countries thereby becomes more comprehensible. The paradox is that, in order to achieve the unequal balance of power between politics and religion, the law had to establish the equality of all religions. But nobody in France seems to know the content of the law because the cultural vision of secularism is very intolerant towards religious expression. The 'Islamic headscarf affair' in 1989 reopened the debate on the specificity of French secularism. The Social Action Fund, a state programme created in 1958 to facilitate the housing and the social integration of Algerian migrants, remains the central institution of the policy.
