PARIS (CNS): French President Nicolas Sarkozy rejected calls for secular values to be enshrined into his country’s constitution and urged religious leaders to do more to spread their message in the country.
“A secular society is one which has decided to separate churches from the state, so the state doesn’t have to account for its choices to churches, and churches don’t depend on the state to live and organise – this is secularity, a secular republic,” he told religious leaders at a traditional New Year meeting January 25.
“But this doesn’t mean churches, respecting the law, are forbidden from speaking.
“”Nor does it mean your words shouldn’t go beyond the walls of your places of worship. That would be a strange idea of democracy: Everyone has a right to speak, except you.”
Sarkozy said France’s status as a “secular and social republic” was “written in black and white” in its constitution, along with its guiding principle of “laicite”, or secularism.
However, he added that the country’s religions should also participate in national debates and in “creating our cultural identities”.
He said it would be a “strange schizophrenia” to preserve France’s religious heritage while insisting religions had “nothing more to say, offer and impart”.
“The spiritual richness you animate, the depth of thought you embody, the values you bear all have a vocation to address themselves to those who never cross the threshold of your churches, mosques, synagogues and temples,” the President told the religious leaders.
Catholics traditionally make up two-thirds of France’s 60 million inhabitants, although fewer than one in 10 attends Sunday Mass, and 40 per cent of the population denies any faith.
Church leaders rejected calls for changes in the application of “laicite” when a commission was set up in 2002 by the country’s former prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin.
However, Mr Sarkozy, a Catholic, pledged to improve ties with religious communities before his May 2007 election.
Since then he has called for religion to play a more prominent part in public life.
During a December 2007 visit to Rome, he said he believed “laicite”, set out in a 1905 church-state separation law, should be interpreted “more positively” to enable religion to be seen “not as a danger, but as an advantage”.
After another Vatican visit in October 2010, the President was accused by opposition politicians of violating the secularism principle by taking part in prayers at Rome’s Basilica of St John Lateran.
In his January speech, Mr Sarkozy defended a controversial April ban on Muslim veils, which he said were “incompatible” with the country’s values and the “dignity of women”.
However, he added that he was also deeply concerned by recent “aggressions against religious symbols”, including attacks on Jewish and Muslim cemeteries, and said the country would guarantee all citizens “the right to practice their chosen faith”.
