Leaders of the Catholic Church and other faiths in France praised President Emmanuel Macron’s positive approach to religion during their first meeting with him just before Christmas.
The meeting, attended by Mr Macron’s interior and education ministers, came only days after Catholic prelates emerged equally satisfied from a session with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.
“It seemed natural to him that religions have a place in the life of the nation,” bishops’ conference spokesman Mgr Olivier Ribadeau Dumas said of Mr Macron. Calling the session “frank and cordial”, he said the president saw France’s trademark secularism, or laïcité, in a balanced way and “the Catholic Church agrees with this completely”.
They also discussed issues such as teaching about religions in state schools, where pupils learn little about faith because the subject is mostly ignored, and Mr Macron said he supported the continued presence of chaplains in hospitals, schools and the military.
The religious leaders asked to be consulted before the government updates bioethics laws this year, said Bishop Pascal Delannoy of Saint-Denis, and “this was guaranteed to us by the president”.
Chief Rabbi Haïm Korsia said Mr Macron warned against a “radicalisation of laïcité”, a reproach religious leaders made against the previous Socialist government for policies that tended to sideline faith in the public sphere.
Mgr Ribadeau Dumas said that the religious leaders told Mr Macron they were disappointed that he was limiting the number of refugees and migrants that France receives and stepping up expulsions of those who did not qualify to stay. “The only time I succeeded in annoying the president was about receiving migrants, where I reminded him of France’s humanist values,” said François Clavairoly, president of the French Protestant Federation.
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