Legal Arguments Against Emotions – How the Law Silences Militant Disillusionment Within the Identity Evolution of a Nonreligious Organisation

This article shows how the law can be used in attempts to silence the emotions of activists and counter opposition to the strategic and doctrinal evolutions of a secular organisation. At the end of the 1980s, France’s biggest confederation of associations, the Ligue de l’enseignement, shifted its doctrinal base from a secularism closed to any dialogue with religions to a recognition of their importance as a cultural fact. Discussions were held with leaders of the main religions present in France, the teaching of religion (from historical and sociological perspectives) was advocated, and reflections on Islam were carried out. But this evolution was initiated by the sole organisation’s leaders and not by the whole confederation, resulting in opposition within the movement. Based on a study of the archives of the Ligue and on interviews with the organisation’s national leaders, this article examines the use of legal arguments to counter opposition within the organisation generated by its changing approaches to secularity. To address emotional responses conveying divisions within the movement, organisation’s leaders put forward legislative arguments referring to the the long-standing legal recognition of religious establishments (with the Goblet law of 1886) and a law on religious symbols passed in 2004. By showing how legislative argumentation has been utilised in managing and mitigating emotional responses such as the anger, disillusionment and fears of secular activists to prevent internal mobilization, the results contribute to ongoing discussions on law, emotion, and collective mobilization. The effectiveness of the legal argumentation in the French context is discussed.