Abstract: Returning to the discussion concerning the relationship between Hobbes and Schmitt, while simultaneously relating it to contemporary debates over the “visibility” of Islam in the French public sphere, we examine three points in succession : How do we reconcile Hobbes’s doctrine of the artificial personality of the State with his militant anticlericalism ? Does the interpretation offered by Schmitt improve our understanding of the difficulty inherent in subjecting citizens to the authority of the law, which leads to the sacralizing of the latter ? How do we evaluate the tendency inherent in political sovereignty to attribute a theological function to the internal enemy of the state ?
