Les dimensions complexes d'une rencontre

The immigration of populations of Muslim origin, from the 1960's on, has opened a new chapter in the relationship between Europe and Islam. Part of these populations has tied up again with its religious identity and has provided itself with an infrastructure of organisations and mosques. This has taken place in parallel with the process of awakening of Islam which concerns the whole of the Muslim world. Muslims demand much more than calls for dialogue and intercultural relations. Nor can one expect from them a simple assimilation to the West. There appears an urgent need to create places of debate and deeper understanding of ideas where mutual questioning, on equal footing, between Muslims and non-Muslims can be aired. The themes of the foreseeable debates include the understanding of religion and its foundations, the place of religion in societies and its relations to the public spheres, the ways of dealing with a plurality of world views.