Ever since the terror attacks in January, the issue of 'secularism' – the separation of church and state - has been at the heart of a debate about the nature of French society. President François Hollande and prime minister Manuel Valls refer to it frequently when they discuss their ideas of how people should “live together” in France. The problem is, however, that no one in government has really defined just what the limits and scope of secularism are. The result is that the government’s official stance on the issue has been vague, pulled in different directions by contradictory statements and actions. In other words, the government has appeared just as divided on this fundamental question as the Left in general, other political movements, the National Assembly and wider society.
The most striking example of these government hesitations and contradictions can be seen in the current Parliamentary bill on secularism in crèches and holiday centres. It was originally put forward by the centre-left Radicaux de gauche (PRG) party, important allies of the Socialist Party (PS) who form part of the government’s majority in the National Assembly. Indeed, the bill has been in the legislative pipelines for four years. After a long series of amendments put forward by former socialist minister and senator Alain Richard, at the height of the so-called Baby-Loup affair – in which a woman was fired from the Baby-Loup private nursery at Chanteloup-les-Vignes north-west of Paris for refusing to remove her Islamic headscarf – the measure was approved by the French Parliament's upper chamber the Senate, then dominated by the Left, in January 2012.
However, the bill remained buried until the PRG, or Radicals as they are often called, chose to revive it in the National Assembly during Parliamentary time that is allotted for smaller parties. The text of the bill was approved by the Assembly's law committee at the start of March, with an amendment that excluded home-based state-approved child carers from its provisions. But the bill as it stands states that religious symbols are to be banned from any crèches and holiday centres that receive public funding.
The government and the PS were caught off-guard at the time, failing to react quickly enough to persuade the PRG to withdraw a bill that, in practice, mainly targets women wearing a veil. Indeed, neither the president of the socialist group of MPs at the National Assembly, Bruno Le Roux, nor the socialist MP overseeing the legislation, Philippe Doucet, saw any problem with it. In fact, a number of politicians on the Left are of the view that secularism is today under attack and that Islam poses a particular problem to the Republic.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Yet at the National Assembly there are, equally, many on the Left who are strongly opposed to the bill, among them the assembly's president Claude Bartolone. Speaking a few weeks before the local départemental elections in March, Bartolone, who is from Seine-Saint-Denis, a département next to Paris, feared that public discussion of the bill would only benefit the right-wing UMP and the far-right Front National. At the time these parties were busily adopting controversial stances on Islam, for example on whether school canteens should offer an alternative to pork dishes. Bartolone also pointed out that the measure risked costing votes in those départements (akin to counties) where Muslims felt continually stigmatised.
This approach left the PRG baffled. “I've been told that the Left was going to lose Seine-Saint-Denis. But here in Normandy [editor's note, in north-west France] it doesn’t cause a problem for anyone,” said PRG MP Alain Tourret from the Calvados département, referring to the bill's likely impact. “They told me that it was going to cause problems for certain communities in Bartolone's area. But here the notion of [different] communities doesn't exist.” A senior socialist official responded: “We no longer live in the same France. We no longer inhabit the same world.”
Within the Socialist Party's Parliamentary group a handful of MPs have made clear their dismay at the proposed bill. “We're so inundated with things that we didn't pay attention straight away,” admits PS MP Arnaud Leroy. “But this bill is extremely dangerous: disguised stigmatisation, that's not secularism.” His colleague Alexis Bachelay said: “At the start Bruno Le Roux swore to us that the government agreed and that they needed to sweet talk the Radicals. But we're all over the place! The extension of secularism to the private domain, that's never been what secularism is about.”
During discussions on the Assembly's law committee at the start of March, the Marseille socialist MP Patrick Mennucci became very worked up over the issue. “Having an Italian grandmother who, right until her death, wore a shawl on her head, which never caused a problem for anyone, I have the feeling that, in banning employees at places that look after young children from wearing the veil, we are exposing ourselves to problems later with people who use public services. Will we have to ban access to hospitals for veiled women? The accumulation of measures that we're putting in place solves nothing.”
Enlargement : Illustration 2
At the same time civic society is becoming mobilised over the issue: all the organisations consulted since the Baby-Loup affair have considered that a new law is unnecessary. This is true, for example, of the official watchdog on secularism in France, the Observatoire de la Laïcité, the human rights body the Commission Nationale Consultative des Droits de l’Homme (CNCDH) and the body representing the views of key economic, social and environmental groups, the Conseil Économique, Social et Environnemental. The Observatoire and the CNCDH have gone so far as to condemn the PRG's bill in strong terms.
“The adoption of this proposed legislation risks seeing the return of a war over the direction the principle of secularism should take, and this over a bill that is on the one hand discriminatory, and on the other unnecessary,” wrote the CNCDH in its official opinion published on March 19th, and which was adopted unanimously with the exception of one abstention, despite the varied nature of the CNCDH membership. The Observatoire, whose president is socialist Jean-Louis Bianco, meanwhile issued a statement recalling its opposition to any new legislation on religious neutrality in the private sector. “The current law, though it is misunderstood, already allows for the restriction of religion (including clothes) and the banning of any proselytising in a private business,” said the organisation, which reports directly to the prime minister Manuel Valls.
Meanwhile Scout bodies of all persuasions warned the ministry of the interior that the bill as it stood risked stopping them from receiving any public funds. In private the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, is not himself a supporter of the bill and does not want to be sitting on the government benches in the National Assembly when it is debated next month. Instead that duty will pass to families minister Laurence Rossignol, who is scarcely any more enthusiastic about the measure. Her own boss, the health and social services minister Marisol Touraine, is herself personally totally opposed to the bill.
'He seems to change opinion according to who he's speaking to'
The Elysée Palace has been alerted to the risks posed by the bill on numerous occasions. The Observatoire's Jean-Louis Bianco has personally telephoned François Hollande several times to warn him of its political and legal dangers. Several of the president’s senior advisors share this concern. In March there was an official reception at the Elysée to showcase ideas produced under the presidential initiative 'La France s'engage' – a project to encourage new ways to help people in society. The interfaith youth association Coexister used the occasion to raise the issue of the bill directly with François Hollande. “We threatened to speak about it publicly during the reception at the Elysée,” says its founder and president Samuel Grzybowski.
The outcome of these concerns was that early in March the Socialist Party asked the PRG to postpone the Parliamentary examination of the bill until after that month's local elections. The Radicals agreed on one condition: a written commitment from Bruno Le Roux, head of the socialist MPs in the Assembly, that the text would be voted through by the socialists at a later date. “He gave us the written document. We have the PS's commitment to vote for the bill,” says the PRG's Alain Tourret, a version of events confirmed by the socialists themselves.
Following that postponement the bill will come back before MPs on May 13th, with the ruling socialists now finding themselves in an absurd situation. For a group of socialist MPs, the Assembly president Claude Bartolone and several ministers are opposed to this bill. And even the president is not in favour of the legislation. But because the PS does not want to annoy the Radicals, whom it needs to maintain its absolute majority in the Assembly, the party is not planning to vote against the bill and kill it outright. “If we vote against it, we'll be accused of being in favour of the veil in crèches … we've reached such a level of bad faith over these questions that it's become impossible to handle,” said one senior socialist.
Instead, the PS and the PRG are in the process of re-writing the bill, led by its rapporteur Alain Tourret and socialist MP Philippe Doucet, who is close to Manuel Valls, to water it down. Article 3 that applied the provisions to childcare workers who worked at home had already gone, and article 2 on “the extension of the principle of neutrality in religious matters to holiday and leisure centres” that receive public funding is expected to be removed. This will come as a relief for Scout groups.
The fate of article 1, which extends the “principle of neutrality in religious matters to crèches and daycare centres” that receive public funds, is less clear. The PRG wants to keep it in its present form. But a section of the PS, supported by the government, wants to replace the current text with the wording used in the court ruling on the Baby-Loup case, under which neutrality on religious matters can be required if the internal rules of the establishment concerned stipulate it. Given that this is the current judge-made law, inserting this text would make it virtually pointless legislating at all.
The whole saga has highlighted not just the tensions inside the Left over secularism, but also the style of government adopted by François Hollande, who allows debates to run without stepping in and making an early decision. The affair has also thrown a spotlight on the balance of power between the different ministries and between the Elysée and Matignon – the prime minister's official residence - which is said to be more positive about the bill.
It is certainly difficult to work out from this saga exactly what the government’s official line is on such an important subject, as several people involved point out. “So, if you succeed in finding [the official line], well done!” says MP Philippe Doucet with a smile. His PRG colleague Alain Tourret notes: “If people know what François Hollande thinks, they're very lucky … I don't.” Samuel Grzybowski adds: “When it comes to secularism François Hollande is completely undecided. He seems to change opinion according to who he's speaking to, and according to the pressures.”
The Left itself is still divided on the issue, split between those who support 'open' secularism and those who are more hard-line 'secularists'. It is an echo of the debate between those who back multiculturalism and those who favour what is termed 'republican universalism'. Historically speaking, the more hard-line secularists are following the line of the early 20th century French prime minister Émile Combes, an anti-cleric who campaigned for the separation of church and state that was eventually enshrined in the law of 1905. The more 'open' secularists are pursuing the approach of Aristide Briand, who personally oversaw that legislation and who placed emphasis on the balance between the neutrality of the state and an individual's freedom of conscience.
The government is also divided over who the debate on secularism should primarily address. Should it be aimed at French Muslims who feel stigmatised, or at French people of Christian background who are worried about Islam?
'The president doesn't want to change the law'
The Elysée meanwhile claims it is sticking to its long-established line, which was expressed by François Hollande in a recent interview with the photo-journalism magazine Polka, an interview which has attracted virtually no attention. “It is not enough to proclaim secularism with authority to make sure it is shared ...It is not a denial of religion but a recognition,” Hollande told the magazine. “For many, secularism denies religion. If you're secular you don't believe in god! That is a major error of interpretation. Secularism is first and foremost the respect for freedom of conscience … In one of your photos a young woman wears a veil on one of the marches on January 11th. She has the perfect right to do so. What she wants to convey is that her religion comes from her freedom but that it is compatible with communal life and that it can co-exist with other faiths,” said the president.
These comments strongly resemble the line taken by the Observatoire de la Laïcité. Moreover, according to Christine Lazerges, president of the CNCDH human rights watchdog, “the executive's doctrine is in principle that of the Observatoire, which reports to Matignon”. An ally of the president adds: “François Hollande is one of those who thinks there is no specific problem with Islam in France. That's his reading of the January attacks.” The proof of this, says the Elysée, is the fact the president is completely opposed to banning the wearing of the veil at university, an idea that was recently floated by the minister for women's rights Pascale Boistard, who is close to Manuel Valls. The prime minister made similar comments back in 2013.
President Hollande also believes that mothers who wear the veil should be allowed to accompany their children on school trips. When L'Expressmagazine recently claimed the contrary, the Elysée flatly denied it. “It's totally untrue. The president thinks that it's not a problem,” said a source. However, Hollande does not want to withdraw the so-called Chatel circular introduced in early 2012 by the then-education minister Luc Chatel that prohibits the wearing of veils on school outings, say his supporters, for fear of “rubbing salt into wounds”.
An aide insists that as far as François Hollande is concerned “the balance of the 1905 law is today the right one. He says it all the time. He doesn't want to change the law.” The aide then recalled an incident in July 2012 during a reception for school students who had passed their baccalauréat exam. An advisor ran to warn the president of a “problem”; two of the pupils were wearing the veil. According to his office, Francis Hollande replied: “No, that's not a problem! At school they take off their veil. Here they want to tell me in this Republican place that they can express their freedom of conscience.”
However, in 'Hollande land' nothing is ever quite as straightforward as that. The president may have chosen Jean-Louis Bianco to be president of the Observatoire de la Laïcité, a man who believes in the legal status quo and who is vehemently opposed to Islamophobia. But Hollande also appointed civil servant Gilles Clavreul as the new inter-ministerial official charged with coordinating policy on anti-racism and anti-Semitism. Clavreul was previously Hollande's advisor on state reforms. According to a profile in Libération, Clavreul refuses to use the term 'Islamophobia', sees himself as a scourge of “communitarianism” - the approach that places greater emphasis on rights for communities than for individuals - and quickly gets irritated when the issue of the veil is raised.
François Hollande also understands perfectly the position of his prime minister Manuel Valls, who is convinced that Islamophobia is being used as a screen to prevent criticism of religions, and that secularism is a fortress under siege that should be defended, if need be through legislation. The president himself has only once used the term “Islamophobia”, in a speech to French diplomats in January 2015.
When it comes to use of language, the president does not employ the term “Islamofascism”, though it is a favourite of Manuel Valls. The interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve does not use it either, though he does speak of “Islamophobia”. Nor does Stéphane Le Foll, the agriculture minister, official government spokesman and close ally of François Hollande, favour “Islamofascism” as an expression. “Our real issue with regards Islam is to avoid the lumping together of different issues, so there has to be an agreement about the words used,” Le Foll explains. “Personally I would not have used the term 'Islamofascist'. Like it or not, there are four to five million French people who either practice or are linked to this religion. To suggest to them that they no longer belong, that's exactly what the terrorists want.” All of which suggests that in the government one finds the same range of sensibilities on the subject as in the Socialist Party.
These different strands will flourish for as long as François Hollande fails to use his authority to impose a single line. “He doesn't want to fight with Matignon over this,” notes one participant in the government debate. Or as socialist MP Philppe Doucer puts it: “Hollande has not wanted to make a decision because he has told himself he would not get everyone to agree.” The risk is that instead he leaves everyone unhappy.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter