ABSTRACT
Although French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s term in office did not reveal him to
be the across-the-board reformer that his campaign rhetoric suggested he would be,
he nonetheless pushed hard on several of French politics’ closed doors in an
attempt to dismantle l’exception franc¸aise (French exceptionalism) in the era of globalisation – from his efforts to raise the retirement age to returning the country’s
armed forces to NATO’s military command structure. Sarkozy’s disruptions of the
status quo included his willingness to speak frankly and publicly, in both positive
and negative terms, about France’s Muslim population and to pursue policies –
both affirmative and repressive – in favour of their integration. In a political culture
in which the 1905 law separating church and state is held in reverence and sec-
ondary affiliations are subordinated to citoyennete´ (citizenship), Sarkozy’s creative
use of religion policy as an instrument for integrating immigrants into French
society marked a significant departure from his predecessors.1
