Until quite recently, one of the core policies of France’s far-right Front National party – whose leader Marine Le Pen contests the presidential run-off with centrist Emmanuel Macron in this Sunday’s vote – was its pledge to expel and repatriate millions of non-European migrants.^[1]

In an effort to detoxify its xenophobic image, since the mid-2000s this repatriation pledge is no longer part of the FN’s official programme.

Nonetheless, the threat of forced repatriation remains a distinct possibility – for the dying, not the living. And Muslim citizens above all are affected by this situation.

The reason? Local politicians – from all parties, not just the FN – have been reluctant to create Muslim burial sections in municipal cemeteries. As a result, in some local areas, Muslims have nowhere to bury the dead according to their religious beliefs.

The situation is increasingly urgent because more and more Muslim families wish to bury their loved ones in France, as I discovered during my research in Paris last year. Previously the norm was to send bodies back to countries of origin in North or West Africa for burial.^[2]

This change in funerary practice has major implications for the management of cemeteries, which in France are owned and run by municipal authorities. A principle of neutrality governs the French state’s relationship with religious institutions, known as laïcité. This principle also extends to the management of cemeteries.

In theory, the neutrality principle prohibits the creation of separate confessional burial sections in the municipal cemetery.^[3] Yet, thanks to the power invested in the mayor to choose the placement of each grave in the municipal cemetery, de facto confessional sections can be created by simply grouping together those individuals whose families express a preference for confessional burial.

Indeed, the Interior Ministry has repeatedly issued guidance to mayors stating that they have such discretionary powers, provided that no signage or physical demarcation (like a hedge or wall) is erected which would indicate a material separation from the rest of the cemetery.^[4]

Nonetheless, such decisions have a shaky legal foundation^[5] and are subject to the vagaries of local politics,^[6] discouraging many mayors from inaugurating confessional burial sections. It is this which has led to the alarming lack of Muslim burial space to meet the coming demand, potentially forcing families to repatriate their dead.

In summary, the refusal to create more confessional sections risks separating families geographically, making it harder for relatives to accomplish the mourning process. Just as importantly, however, the lack of confessional sections has perverse effects for the integration of migrant-origin communities.

In denying the possibility for confessional burial, intransigent mayors may serve to alienate those Muslim citizens whose wish for burial in the municipal cemetery stems from a profound sense of belonging to France and a desire to lay down roots for future generations.

Integration, as several observers have noted, is a process which not only occurs in socio-economic and cultural domains: it may also become manifest through the ultimate act of incorporation in the soil itself.^[7]

 

 

References

[1] This had been a key policy of the Front National since the late 1970s, and the party’s 1995 presidential manifesto pledged to repatriate three million non-European migrants. See Shields, J. (2014). The Front National: From Systematic Opposition to Systemic Integration? Modern & Contemporary France, 22(4), 491–511.
[2] See Godard, B., & Taussig, S. (2007). Les musulmans en France : Courants, institutions, communautés, un état des lieux. Paris: Laffont.
[3] Note that it is nonetheless permitted to affix religious symbols to individual graves.
[4] Circulaire du ministre de l’Intérieur n° 75-603 du 28 novembre 1975 relative à l’inhumation des Français de confession islamique; Circulaire du ministre de l’Intérieur n° 91-30 du 14 février 1991 relative à l’inhumation des défunts de confession islamique; Circulaire n°NORINTA0800038C du 19 février 2008 relative à la police des lieux de sépulture.
[5] See Sueur, J.-P., & Lecerf, J. R. (2006). Rapport d’information sur le bilan et les perspectives de la législation funéraire. Paris: Sénat.
[6] See Aggoun, A. (2006). Les musulmans face à la mort en France. Paris: Vuibert.
[7] See Chaïb, Y. (2000). L’émigré et la mort: la mort musulmane en France. Aix-en-Provence: Edisud. Nunez, J. (2011). La gestion publique des espaces confessionnels des cimetières de la Ville de Paris: l’exemple du culte musulman (1857-1957). Le Mouvement Social, (237), 13–32.