“It’s a word that one hears all the time, sometimes to talk nonsense about it,” said Jean-Louis Bianco, 72, a former minister under the late socialist president François Mitterrand, for whom he previously served as chief of staff, and who is now chairman of the Observatoire de la laïcité , which in English goes by the name of the Secularism Monitoring Centre.
He was speaking about secularism, a principle enshrined in France’s constitution, before a gathering of about 200 secondary school students last week in Vitry-le-François, some 180 kilometres east of Paris. “It is generally thought of as being good, but one doesn’t always know what it is,” he told them. Bianco travels around France several times per week to venues like the meeting in Vitry-le-François, but also for meetings with professional groups including magistrates, teachers, local authorities and public sector managers and social workers.
The Secularism Monitoring Centre, a consultative public body launched in 2013, advises the public and private sector - and also reports back to government on its findings and recommendations - concerning the issue of secularity in France, including on public perceptions, and official and practical applications of the texts of the law.
Secularism was established in France under a 1905 law which detailed the separation between churches and the state. French attachment to the secular nature of its public institutions is permanently underlined by politicians, many of whom argue that it is a key principle with which to combat heightened tensions over religious identity. The demands of the laws pertaining to secularism range from the absence of any religious affiliation of government or state institutions to the banning of ostentatious religious clothing or objects in schools.
On the centre’s website, it states that secularism is “a fundamental value and essential principle” of France’s republican constitution, as well as being “a French invention”. It argues that, amid increasing cultural diversity, “the country needs secularism now more than ever, for it enables all citizens, whatever their philosophical or religious beliefs, to live together”.
“Secularism is facing new challenges that have arisen in recent decades, in the context of a rising tide of separatist claims and the misuse of secularism to stigmatize people,” it says. “Republican secularism in France must draw strength from its heritage and rise to these challenges. The Monitoring Centre, with its wide range of members, has begun to examine the situation, in order to formulate opinions and recommendations.”
Together with Lylia Bouzar, a jurist who last year launched an association campaigning against Islamist sectarianism, and also Samuel Grzybowski, who founded Coexister, an association promoting inter-religious tolerance, Bianco has co-authored L’Après-Charlie, (The After-Charlie), a book that aims to address the questions raised after the separate terrorist attacks in January by Islamist gunmen in Paris , including upon the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Paris kosher supermarket, which left a total of 20 people dead. “Tensions are more and more heightened, and this has not got any better since the attacks in January,” said Bianco. “The excessive media coverage of certain situations can lead us to think that the country is put to fire and the sword, but this is not the case.”
The questions raised in the book include “Does one have to say Je suis Charlie?”, referring to the phrase coined in solidarity with the victims of the Paris attacks, and “Is indignation open to interpretation?”
Enlargement : Illustration 1
During the meeting with pupils at the lycée François-Ier in Vitry-le-François on October 5th, the school’s headmaster, Gérard Recoque, recounted that the January terrorist attacks in Paris had had a “stunning” effect on his establishment. Just one pupil had refused to take part in the minute’s silence that the government had demanded be held across France in tribute to the victims. “I gave him an educative punishment by making him come to a conference given by Latifah Ibn Ziaten,” explained Recoque, referring to the Muslim mother of one of the soldiers killed by Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah in March 2012. “After the school holidays, he told me ‘I’ve changed sir’,” the headmaster said.
Bianco began his presentation on secularism with a historical account, recalling the “major battle between the political powers and the Catholic Church” throughout the 19th century, and the “major law of December 9th 1905” which sealed the separation between churches and state and which he argued “remains topical”.
“Secularism is firstly freedom, that of to believe or to not believe,” he told the assembled pupils. “It is the independence of the state with regard to religions. It is also the absolute neutrality of public servants, but not the users of public services.”
Bianco said there was an exception to that principle, which is the law introduced in 2004 which bans pupils from wearing or carrying all ostentatious religious clothing and symbols. In public spaces, displaying allegiance to one’s faith is lawful, except for the wearing of the hijab, banned in 2010.
He cited a comment by Aristide Briand, the socialist Member of Parliament (and later French prime minister) who played a leading role in the adoption of the 1905 law, when he replied to the proposition by a fellow MP that priests should be prohibited from wearing their cassocks in the street. “That would be to run the risk, for a more than problematic result, of being criticized for intolerance, and even to be exposed to a greater danger still: the ridicule of wanting, through a law which carries the aim of establishing freedom in this country regarding confessions, to impose upon the ministers of faith the modification of their clothes,” said Briand.
Bianco recalled how a prefect (who has post of senior regional representative of the state administration), had boasted to him of how he had asked a woman who had entered his prefecture building to take off the veil she was wearing. He advised the prefect "to revise" his knowledge of the law, which in fact prohibits public employees only from wearing ostentatious religious clothing.
Bianco spoke of his “fears” amid the growing climate of intolerance, which he said had been illustrated over the past year by a 100% rise in anti-Semitic attacks and a 400% rise in attacks against mosques. “I am concerned,” he told the pupils. “I sense a growing nervousness. Mistrust is increasing. The provocations by radical Muslim circles, and also those of radical secularists, who argue for a completely false conception of the law, can lead to clashes.”
'The republic must be secular and social'
Meanwhile, the Secularism Monitoring Centre has recorded no increase in incidents which flout the secular rules governing hospitals and schools. “People are profoundly attached to secularity, including among our Muslim compatriots, “ Bianco said. “Cases of conflict are much more limited than one might think. It is a mistake to imagine that secularity is a fortress under siege.”
He was critical of the fact that “since the end of the 1980s, when one talks of secularity, it is in general only about Islam, and above all the head scarf”, and pointed to the litany of proposals made to ban the headscarf in private companies, in state-subsidised private nurseries, and universities and other higher education institutions (as suggested last year by the French junior minister for women’s rights, Pascale Boistard). “Apart from the UNI students’ union, which remains ambiguous [on the subject], no organisation or person questioned [by the centre] considered that the veil posed a serious problem within universities,” said Bianco.
Bianco cited other examples of what might at best be confusion, and at worst a desire to humiliate, regarding the application of the rules of secularism. These included an incident this July in the Moselle département (county) in eastern France, when a woman who was receiving chemotherapy treatment was refused entry to a bowling alley by a security guard because she had covered her thinning hair with a scarf. In another incident during local elections in March, the rabbi of Toulouse, Avraham Weill, was ordered to remove his skull cap in a voting station by an observer from the radical-left Front de Gauche alliance. The ignorance of the law is such that in 2013 a false rumour was put about, and largely relayed, that the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, was preparing, under pressure from Muslim associations, to order the removal in the capital of the traditional cross signs that identify high-street chemist shops.
He slammed high-profile French thinkers and commentators Michel Onfray and Alain Finkielkraut, along with French writer Michel Houellebecq for fuelling fear of the Muslim population’s supposed takeover of France, what he called “this old theory so dear to the far-right”, and also the comments made last month by former conservative minister Nadine Morano that France was a “white race” country. “It’s catastrophic,” said Bianco. “France is a mixed country. We do not have only Christian roots, and there are not only whites.”
Following the meeting in the school, Bianco visited the town hall in Vitry-le-François where the mayor, Jean-Pierre Bouquet, had brought together around 20 of its department managers. Bianco listened while one of them recounted the case of a woman employee of the town hall, which has a staff of 450, who refused to take part in a professional evaluation meeting with a man, which Bianco said “was not acceptable”. He was asked about what should be their approach to the wearing of the Muslim veil. “A mother can go to parent-teacher meetings in a veil, when occasionally accompanying school trips, and she can be a candidate in elections wearing the veil.” He was asked for advice on the town hall’s funding of places of worship. “In a church, the mayor can undertake building work on the structure, to preserve [a site of] local heritage, but to renovate the interior is prohibited.”
Concerning the participation of the mayor or local coucillors in local religious services, Bianco advised: “In this case I argue for the precedent set by [General Charles] de Gaulle. As head of state, he took part in religious events, but abstained from taking communion in church. In a synagogue you wear a skull cap. In a mosque you take off your shoes.”
The group was asked whether a town hall employee who has a post that involves meeting with members of the public could be allowed to place in their office, for example at Christmas time, a small porcelain effigy of the nativity scene, to which the answer was a clear “No”.
Could halal meals be included in town hall-provided catering? Yes, but only when there are also other menu choices in order to satisfy everyone’s demands. Commenting on the recent controversial moves by several French mayors belonging to the conservative Right and far-right to put an end to school canteen menus which offer pork-free meals, Bianco told the group that “secularity is not gastronomy”, adding: “Secularism is not about forcing little French citizens to eat pork. The situation is very simple: it suffices to offer a choice. That’s good for health and its common sense.”
Last Wednesday, a group of centre-right and Green party Members of Parliament proposed for future debate a bill of law which, if approved, will require French school canteens to offer an alternative of vegetarian meals among their menus.
The Secularism Monitoring Centre has drawn up three practical guides for advising local authorities, private companies and schools on the texts of the law of secularity and their practical application, which are available online. “Through lack of knowledge of the rules, some can fear they are disrespecting secularism by agreeing to a request of a religious nature, or fear that they are discriminating by rejecting it,” said Bianco, who wants to see the issue of secularism and “integration, immigration and Islam” feature high on the agenda of the next presidential elections, due in 2017. He warned against the idea held by some that secularism is the answer to everything, and cited early 20th-century French socialist leader Jean Jaurès. “Jaurès said ‘the republic must be secular and social. It will remain secular if it knows how to remain social’”, he said in what some might interpret as a message for his socialist colleague, President François Hollande.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse