Religion surprise focus in Fillon’s primary success

Free-market social conservative François Fillon became the man to beat in France’s presidential election next spring after winning a resounding 67 per cent in the centre-right primary run-off last Sunday, following a campaign in which religious issues played an unusually prominent role.

His victory came one week after he unexpectedly swept the first round of the primary, thanks in part to strong support from Catholic voters who liked his “Mr Clean” appeal and saw in him the candidate closest to the ideals of the Church-supported street protests against the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2013.

During the past week, his centrist rival, Alain Juppé, attacked him as a Catholic traditionalist supported by the far right. He suggested that Mr Fillon, a practising Catholic personally opposed to abortion, might tamper with the law that legalised the procedure in 1975. Mr Juppé, a self-described “agnostic Catholic”, who claimed to be more in tune with modern society, also argued that he was closer to the social vision of Pope Francis than Mr Fillon.

Left-wing media and politicians joined in the attacks on Mr Fillon, denouncing his free-market reform proposals as a Thatcherite programme, a comparison he does not deny. The left-wing daily Libération covered its front page with a map of France fringed by rosary beads and the headline, “Help! Jesus is back!”

Mr Fillon, from the Le Mans region of traditionally Catholic western France, and a former prime minister like Mr Juppé, denied he was a “medieval reactionary”, as his critics asserted. “This is grotesque and ridiculous,” he said. He stressed that he considered abortion a settled issue, and would not revoke the law on gay marriage although he wants to restrict the provision allowing gay couples to adopt children.

Mr Fillon is also opposed to assisted procreation and surrogate motherhood, issues also dear to the anti-gay marriage protesters who later formed a political movement called Common Sense and threw their support behind him.
In his book Conquer Islamic Totalitarianism, Mr Fillon advocated a firm policy against the violent jihadist movement that has attacked France several times in the past two years. He has also defended Christians in the Middle East against Islamic State’s campaign to drive them out.  

Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, Archbishop of Paris, said he was surprised to see politicians claiming to be close to Pope Francis, when many of them demanded more secularism in public life.

As for the abortion debate, he expressed concern about a bill due in parliament that would extend the crime of “hindering abortion” to pro-life websites that publish what the Socialist Government considers false information. “What obsession pushes the Government to choose this precise issue as the place to intervene, rather than sites promoting terrorist radicalisation? I don’t know,” he said.