Paris Cardinal André Vingt-Trois has accused Education Minister Vincent Peillon of making “a sort of secular religion” out of France’s official Church-State division (laïcité), writes Tom Henghan.
Mr Peillon announced last month a “charter of laïcité” for schools and said state schools, where this is no religious education, would start teaching “secular morality” next year.
Before the Socialists came to power last year, Mr Peillon wrote an approving book entitled “A Religion for the Republic” about Ferdinand Buisson, an anticlerical politician at the time of the 1905 law enshrining laïcité who argued that schools should promote a “secular faith” akin to his liberal Protestantism.
In a public debate with Interior Minister Manuel Valls last week, the cardinal said this view violates the religious neutrality the state is supposed to maintain and laïcité is supposed to uphold. Its claim to “eradicate all Judeo-Christian references for a more neutral vision of the universal” was incoherent, he said.
Mr Peillon and Mr Valls are among the most active advocates in the Socialist Government of a strict application of laïcité that clearly limits the role of religion in public. Mr Valls, who is responsible for relations with religions, rejected the cardinal’s argument.
Mr Peillon also suggested that schools, public and private, should display the motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” and the French and European flags on their facades as a way to promote “republican values”.
The secretary general of the Catholic school system, Pascal Balmand, said posting the “charter of laïcité” in private schools seemed aimed at stifling discussion of faith there. As for emblazoning France’s famous motto on school facades, Mr Balmand suggested Catholic schools could add a verse from the gospels to show they differ from state schools.
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