The President’s Passion Play

Sarkozy's rhetoric is reopening deep wounds. As French secularism historian Jean Baubérot notes, "The battle between the priest and the schoolteacher lasted centuries! Sure, in another country, that point would be much less important. But in France, it resuscitates a battle that only ended decades ago." The law separating church and state dates to 1905. Since French secularism evolved to counter the dominance of a single Catholic Church, he explains, the secular sensibility in France is less relaxed than in the United States, where diverse Protestant churches have historically coexisted. In France, state evocations of God still come off as partisan.

From a distance, the French view the trappings of American civil religion as quirky, at best. A Le Monde book review recently mused about "In God We Trust," the greenback dictum: "When we read this profession of faith, printed on American dollars, we feel a curious sentiment of eeriness, of exoticism, of amazement. That a modern people, active and enterprising, officially proclaims its trust in God on its bank notes is enough to disconcert the French." For some commentators, Sarkozy brings "Anglo-Saxon" secularism too close to home.

And some staunch secularists view a rollback of France's strict separation of politics and religion as dangerous. Caroline Fourest, author of "Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan," fears a return to religion as the opiate of the people "to mask disengagement from social policy." In his book, Sarkozy promoted religion as a "pacifying factor" in France's bleak banlieues (later made world-famous after fiery riots by angry youths, some the sons of non-Christian immigrant families). Again in Rome in December, he called the banlieues "religious deserts." Indeed, Fourest contends, as Interior minister, Sarkozy's vision was "formed in a spirit of security. He really considers that promoting religion in rough neighborhoods is a way to calm young people. The exchange is a drop in delinquency for a rise in fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is less damaging politically, apparently." Committed, strictly secular public policy is the best medicine, she says. "It really isn't the moment, in the current context of post-9/11 and the general rise of fundamentalism, to play at killing that antidote," says Fourest.

But what will Sarkozy's homilies really mean for policy? It's not yet clear. In Rome, he held that "it isn't about modifying the great equilibriums" of French secularist law. And his Interior minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, who has commissioned a working group, has been careful to specify that changes to century-old legislation would be no more than housekeeping. "Since the 1905 law, society has changed," she told La Croix newspaper. Cemeteries, for one, are today running out of room for Jews and Muslims who wish to be buried among others of their faith. But current legislation prohibits the state from ruling on sectarian cemetery quarters, a practical problem that needs solving and that local authorities can't handle alone. Alliot-Marie says, "It is out of the question that we reopen quarrels that profoundly divided our country." But it may be too late for that. If no paradigm shift is planned, Sarkozy's unorthodox oratory seems an indulgence too far. No wonder his precursors passed on the pulpit.

© 2008