A study looking at the prevalence of radical ideology among high school students has found that French Muslims are much more likely to tolerate violence and to hold fundamentalist religious views than other pupils.
The National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) study involved more than 7,000 students, aged between 14 and 16, who were studying at 21 schools and four academies in France.
Sociologists who conducted the survey, Anne Muxel and Olivier Galland, stressed the sample is not representative of French youth as a whole.
The schools included in the study are located in poor areas, with overrepresentation in the student body of pupils from working class backgrounds (41 per cent), students with immigrant backgrounds (38 per cent), and Muslims (25 per cent).
The CNRS reported that 11 per cent of respondents overall adhere to religious fundamentalism, which rises to 32 per cent among Muslim youths.
Mr. Galland noted a “striking difference” between the figure compared with six per cent of Christians and 0.6 per cent of non-Muslims identified by the governmental research organisation as “religious absolutists”.
“However, two-thirds of Muslims do not adhere to these ideas,” the sociologist added. [Breitbart London] Read more
