Last updated on 2013.02.05
The second round of the French presidential election happens a week from today. Incumbent President and conservative Union for a Popular Movement leader Nicolas Sarkozy faces a stiff challenge from Socialist candidate François Hollande. (With that name, it's like America Ferrera running for President of the United States. François pour la France... America for America!)
Among the topics of discussion in the French presidential campaign is la laïcité, the French concept of political secularism. The first line of the first article of the French Constitution declares France an "indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic." The Republic's 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and the State put la laïcité into practice, but the French Constitution contains no clear equivalent to the Establishment clause in the American First Amendment. La laïcité has evolved to include a 2004 law banning the display of religious symbols (hijabs, crosses, you name it) in schools. To the laïcité-minded French, official pious displays like opening Congressional committee hearings with prayers are inconceivable.
As I review the candidates' Twitter feeds (the French President and his Socialist opponent both Tweet hard on Sunday), I find Hollande, who wants to put church-state separation more explicitly in the Constitution, expressing a comforting defense of la laïcité:
Je n'accepte pas que les religions soient instrumentalisées dans le débat public! (I do not accept the exploitation of religion in the public debate!)
Je demande l'application du stricte principe de laïcité dans tout le pays! (I demand application of the strict principle of secularism in all the country!)
Hollande does enjoy his points d'exclamation.
And how does the conservative, kinda Catholic President respond to the call for strict separation of church and state?
La Laïcité est une frontière qui protège les enfants, les femmes, la République. (La Laïcité is a border that protects children, women, the Republic.)
Sarkozy has expressed in the past a desire to open up a little more breathing room for religious folks to express their faith. However, like most French believers, Sarkozy spends more time defending la laïcité than groaning about it Here's a summary of comments from President Sarkozy from a 2009 chat with the Council of European Episcopal Conferences:
He developed the point that we've heard him express before, namely that religions deal with the meaning of life, with the search for living together peacefully and seeking the common good, and act as a possible source of hope. We live in a society and in a Europe that needs that. The role of the state is not to give meaning to life, but to organise life. The meaning of life comes not only from religions, but from other schools of thought as well. Everyone develops his own convictions. But in this domain, religions have their place and their role to play" [Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, quoted in Tom Heneghan, "Sarkozy Explains French Laïcité to Visiting Catholic Bishops," Reuters: FaithWorld, 2009.10.02].
Ah, France, where the conservative presidential candidate agrees with the genuine Socialist candidate that government is here to organize life, not provide meaning, and that people of all faiths, as well as those who reject faith, have a place in building that meaning and building their government.
Update 11:30 MDT: Don't think that, were I a Frenchman, I'd automatically vote for the Socialist. President Sarkozy makes my choice difficult with this Tweet:
"Mon sport favori, c'est le cyclisme, que je pratique" #Stade2
— Nicolas Sarkozy (@NicolasSarkozy) April 29, 2012
Moi aussi, Monsieur le Président! Vive la vélo-cité!