Faith fundamentalists a danger, says minister

Interior Minister Manuel Valls has said France must combat both Catholic and Muslim fundamentalists equally because they presented a clear danger to the secular system, writes Tom Heneghan.

Speaking two days before he accompanied President François Hollande to the Vatican, Mr Valls told fellow Socialist lawmakers that “extreme right-wing Catholics” opposed gay marriage, legalised last year, and current plans to make access to abortion easier.

This Catholic far Right, which he did not define more clearly, had found allies among political conservatives, he said in an apparent reference to the hundreds of thousands who marched against same-sex marriage last year.

“We must wage combat because there is a danger,” he told the meeting reviewing France’s trademark secular system of laïcité.

In contrast to his criticism of Catholics, Mr Valls used a coded term for Muslims, saying there were increased religious demands from the suburbs. He said Muslims should not be humiliated and Socialists should stress their efforts for integration and against discrimination when dealing with them.

He said Socialists found it harder to deal with demands from Muslims as they are poorer and tend to vote on the left. “Just like we fight a far Right that wants to row backwards on abortion, we must fight with the same vigour” against these demands, he said.