To describe France's relationship with religion in general, and its Muslim minority in particular, as "tortured" would be something of an understatement. Since the French revolution, France has sought to portray itself as the vanguard of secular liberation from the tyranny of religion. Despite the revolution being over 210 years old, old habits still die hard: it was only in 2007 that France crossed the threshold of being officially less than 50% Roman Catholic, while at the same time seeing a steady rise in the number of people describing themselves as atheist's (31% in 2007 vs 23% in 1994).
In contrast, Muslims believe that the proper functioning of society requires Divine guidance, and that only Allah has the authority to establish laws by which society can be governed. On a purely practical level, human attempts to codify and implement their own laws inevitably result in a sometimes comical cycle of trial, error and mutual inconsistency. A classic example of this is France's attitude toward polygamy. On the one hand, France probably has the most open attitude in the West towards adultery. When asked about his illegitimate child from his mistress of over twenty years, the late French president Francois Mitterrand famously replied: "So what?" Even the current President, Nicolas Sarkozy has not hid the fact that he was closely involved with his current wife Carla Bruni well before the divorce papers from his previous wife were finalized.
Given this backdrop, it seems almost comical (and hypocritical in the extreme) to watch the French attempt to revoke the citizenship of a hapless Muslim butcher for the crime of actually admitting to having four wives. As Leis Hebbadj ironically points out: "If you can have your citizenship taken away for having mistresses, there are lots of Frenchmen who will have their citizenship taken away." The problem of course is that Hebbadj does not simply have four girlfriends, but has taken on the responsibility of these women as well. The government claims that Hebbadj and his family have committed fraud because all four women have claimed benefits as single mothers. Now here's where it gets confusing: If they actually were Hebbadj's girlfriends, they presumably would have every right to claim benefits, but since he claims they're his wives (although because polygamy is illegal, such marriages would not be recognized by the state) it's fraud, since they're not really single mothers. Add to this the fact that Islamic marriages are not recognised by French law and were these women to have sought a divorce in French courts they would be told that you were not married according to French law and therefore were not eligible for divorce.
In most other countries, the left-wing women's rights activists would now mobilize, stating that adultery in all its forms degrades and marginalizes women, with polygamy being even worse. France however cannot be so sanguine: it is a country with a long tradition of accepting adultery at the very highest echelons of society. In the case of Mitterrand, his illegitimate daughter Mazarine Pingeot and her mother (his mistress) Annie Pingeot openly attended his state funeral. Indeed, Mitterrand even brought his daughter along on state trips (at government expense). Such behaviour clearly speaks to institutional acceptance of open adultery. This is quite in contrast to the United States, which while at once the largest producer of pornographic films, still manages to muster its moral indignation at the prospect of sexual impropriety on the part of its politicians. So while it is OK for men and women to use each other for sexual pleasure, actually making a commitment to honour each other's rights and responsibilities within the honourable bounds of marriage is liable to get your citizenship stripped.
France is not a country which can claim to uphold the ideal of one man, one woman to the exclusion of all others, and yet it is France's Nicolas Sarkozy who has used the excuse of moral superiority to use polygamy as a wedge issue to mobilize the xenophobic right wing in his favour. This follows on the heels of his efforts to ban the Islamic veil (perhaps he might relent if Hebbadj's niqabi wives all posed in bikinis). Sarkozy should reflect on how confused and hypocritical his stance really is.
As for Mazarine Pingeot, she also reflects France's ambiguous relationship with its Muslim minority - she has 2 children with her current partner, Mohamed Ulad-Mohand.
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