As F rench as Anyone Else: Islam and the N orth A frican Second Generation in F rance

Amid growing I slamophobia throughout E urope, M uslims in F rance have been described as “ethnoracial outsiders” ( B leich 2006, 3–7) and framed as a cultural challenge to the identity of the French republic. Based on ethnographic research of 45 middle class adult children of N orth A frican, or M aghrébin, immigrants, I focus on the actual religious practices of this segment of the F rench M uslim population, the symbolic boundaries around those practices, and the relationship between how middle class, N orth A frican second‐generation immigrants understand their marginalization within mainstream society and how they frame their religiosity to respond to this marginalization. How respondents frame their practices reveals their allegiance with the tenets of F rench R epublicanism and laïcité as well as shows how M uslim religious practices are being accommodated to the F rench context. This religiosity is not a barrier to asserting a F rench identity. Individuals frame their religious practices in ways that suggest they see themselves as just as F rench as anyone else.