“Everyone must do their share”

“France has been attacked and precisely because it has been attacked it has shown that it won’t bend down. The consciousness movement we have seen in the past days is a sign that fear will not have the last word.” Monsignor Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, General Secretary, spokesperson of the French Bishops, is in his office of the Bishops’ Conference. The permanent Council has just closed where inevitably, on the aftermath of the grande Marche Republicaine, reflections focused on the events that in a week have deeply changed the face of this Country. Maria Chiara Biagioni interviewed him for SIR Europe.France the day after. What worries you the most?”First of all we will have to see what will be the follow-up of these events. We don’t know if this national consciousness that manifested itself with marches across the Country will be capable to fend off terrorist attacks or if the terrorists will be able to say: ‘ they are not afraid, let them see what fear is really like.’ And then we will have to understand if this movement of national unity will develop. France will emerge from these events stronger than before but everyone – politics, religions and civil institutions – should and must play a very important role.”54 acts of Islamophobia and 21 mosques attacked after the strike against Charlie Hebdo. Is there a risk of over-simplifying?”It is a clear sign that there is in the country a difficult relationship with the religious factor. The mosques were attacked, but the Jews were killed and Catholic websites were hacked this weekend. We must allow that every religion finds its proper place in this French system based on laicity and ask society and the State to guarantee it. I think that the Muslims, who are the direct and indirect victims of these attacks, have a big job to carry out in the field of education, to allow their faithful to live in French society as an opportunity and not as an aggression.”Don’t the events of the past days in France represent a failure of the “French” system of laicitè?”No, I do not think it is a failure of our system of secularism. I think this is somewhat of a challenge to secularism. It is the State that is secular, not our society. Society must allow everyone, atheists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists to live fully and in respect with each other what they are and what they believe in”.How?”School and universities are the places where to build our future, where young people should be allowed to live their differences and learn to know them, and understand that it is possible not only to accept them but also to respect them.”Education in facts. Has it been another failure? The attacks were carried out by French youths. How could it be possible?”Indeed it is the first time that attacks are perpetrated by youths that were born and raised in our French system. It’s the sign that integration has not involved a part of our population. For some people the reasons ought to be found in the system of the banlieue that has prevented people from being socially integrated in the life of the country; for others in the absence of an identity culture that prevented these young people from identifying in something specific that prompted a drift towards Islamic fundamentalism in which they found the core of their identity. It is necessary to recover the meaning of being citizens of a same Country regardless of their religion or belief.”Some people refused to take part in the March as a protest with the editorial line of Charlie Hebdo. What is your idea?”Freedom of expression is the sign of an evolved civilization. Catholics and Muslims have been the victims of Charlie Hebdo. There have been attacks on the heart of our faith that have hurt us. Freedom of expression is not without limits, it’s not omnipotent and it should go hand in hand with the freedom of conscience, worship and action. There is an urgent need not to foment what destroys and divides us. It’s the time of the quest for the common good and the general interest. Together we must recover the strength of the reasons for living together.”