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The Algerian experience with Islamist parties is still marked by the case of the Islamic Salvation Front (Front islamique du salut, FIS), whose main objective was to establish an Islamic state. Based on an analysis of the discourse of Islamist parties, this article aims to shed light on the debates that these parties have conducted in opposition to the idea of secularism, understood here as the separation of the political and the religious. In this article, we first show that this struggle is not unique to the (radical) FIS, but also concerns other so-called moderate Islamist parties. We then illustrate the context of the Hirak, which had an impact on the ideological divisions in Algeria around the slogan of the 'civil state'. The Islamist parties thus mobilised the Islamic referent to defend their own project of a state that defends Islam and to oppose any discourse that limits the role of religion in the political sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]