With a large majority of the French electorate declaring themselves to be Catholic, their influence could be crucial in the first round of the presidential election next month 

Even today, two-thirds of French people identify themselves as Catholic, though since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, only two of its seven presidents have described themselves as such. So it should have been a welcome surprise for the Catholics of France when last November former Prime Minister François Fillon emerged as the shock winner of the centre-Right Republicans’ presidential primary.

President Charles de Gaulle was a regular attender at Sunday Mass, particularly if he was not in Paris; his wife was a daily Mass attender. François Mitterrand’s Catholicism remained hidden until his final years when it emerged as a significant influence in both his youth and his old age. He must be one of the few people to have had two Catholic funerals on the same day, one in a cathedral, without the body, and the other in a small country church with his family present.

Fillon, more in the de Gaulle tradition, is one of the 3 per cent of the French population who attends Mass regularly, and he will feel at home when he does so since most French Catholics, like American Catholics, “vote Right”. A survey recently carried out by La Croix, the Catholic daily, suggested that 56 per cent of French Catholics voted for either the Republicans or the far-Right Front National. A further 25 per cent voted Left or Green. The right-wing bloc of voters, forming roughly 36 per cent of the total, is of some significance since it frequently ends up on the winning side. But although there are plenty of Catholic voters, it is not at all clear that there is “a Catholic vote”. Politically speaking, French Catholics are difficult to situate.