Rigour but also respect” “

The report of the Bernard Stasi Commission was presented in France on Thursday, 11 December. The Commission was given the task of listening to and taking into examination the views of French citizens on the lay State, in the light of the debate that has been raging in France over the last few months. It’s a debate that is touching on many aspects of social life: the use of the Islamic veil in schools, the possibility for workers to celebrate their own religious holidays, the presence of religious symbols in public places, and religious teaching in schools. President Jacques Chirac has also intervened on the question. On 17 December he gave his assent to a law on religious symbols and the promulgation of a code of secularism. The bishops’ opinion. The Elysée’s proposal has met with support in the French Episcopal Conference. Its president Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard has declared: “the code of secularism proposed by the President of the Republic could help to usefully remind us of the principles and rules that govern us in this field, but it should also emphasise that secularism is, in the first place, a kind of living together enriched by experience and practice”. “The State is secular – he continues – and this neutrality is one of the foundations of modern democracy. But it is also accompanied by vigilance to ensure freedom of conscience and the free exercise of worship”. According to Ricard, “it is in fact the State’s task to ensure that the same respect and consideration be accorded to all the great religious families”, taking into account “their historical diversity, and their different conception of God, man and woman”. On the question of the display of religious symbols (crucifixes, stars of David, hands of Fatima…) in public places, to be regulated with a law, Archbishop Ricard believes that “a law does not exonerate us from trying to discern between what is ‘ostentatious’ and what is ‘discreet'”. On the contrary, he concludes, “education, teaching and the affirmation of a common project of society seem to us of primary importance”. An intransigent but respectful form of secularism. A law on secularism – it is with this recommendation that the Stasi report closes – ought to involve a dual commitment: specifying the rules of how the public services should function and “ensuring the spiritual diversity of our country”. The report admits that “groups of extremists are at work in our country”; they are trying to “incite the young to reject France and its values. The international situation and, in particular, the conflict in the Middle East, are concurring to aggravate the tension and foment conflicts in some of our cities”. In this context, many French citizens are asking for greater “authority” from the State, especially in schools. The results of the Commission reflect “the diversity of the political, religious and philosophic convictions in the country”. But the Commission also reaffirms in a unanimous way the view of a secular state that is “at once intransigent in the application of the principles of the Republic and respectful of religious faiths and philosophic beliefs”. On this question, the Council of the Christian Churches had written a joint message to the President of the Republic, asking that the State be the guarantor of freedom of religion and the promoter of real integration, starting out from the outskirts of the big cities. Proper training of teachers. The Protestant Federation of France has also given the work of the Commission a positive welcome. It “has permitted – the Federation says in a communiqué – the principles of the lay State in the France of the 21st century to be clarified. The report confirms that the lay State gives scope to all religions and confers on them the same rights and duties”. The Federation appreciates the way in which the Commission has tackled the question of the non-confessional State, by underlining the principle of “living together” in harmony in society and in particular in schools. It regards as fundamental, to this end, the “reinforced campaign against racism and anti-Semitism”, the acceptance of “differences in diet” and the “symbolically strong recognition of new holidays for students” of other faiths. The Protestant Federation also supports the proposal of introducing Islam into the teaching of religion in schools in Alsace and Moselle, “so long as the student’s freedom to choose or not to choose this teaching be guaranteed”. In this regard, however, the Federation calls for the “proper training of teachers”.