French politicians tackle religion
Taboo topic gets nods as hopefuls tap into Catholic identity and antiMuslim feelings
PARIS Two of the most interesting photo ops of France’s current presidential election campaign took place last month 2,000 miles away in Lebanon — and they were all about religious optics.
In one, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen called off a meeting with Grand Mufti Abdellatif Deriane just outside his Beirut office when the Muslim cleric’s staff insisted she don a headscarf. With the video cameras rolling, she emphatically refused.
Later that day, she smiled and exchanged pleasantries with Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai, leader of Lebanon’s Maronite Christians and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
The National Front leader made her first trip abroad as presidential hopeful to burnish her weak foreign policy credentials, but the images flashed back to France sent a strong domestic message. Her supporters back home immediately got the memo — “no to Muslims, yes to Christians” — and loved it.
Playing the religion card so openly is unusual in France, where the separation of church and state is normally taken so seriously that politicians rarely if ever mention faith in public.
But this two-round election, on April 23 and May 7, is not taking place in normal times.
After several deadly attacks by militant Islamists in recent years and sliding support for the main parties, politicians are harking back to a secularized version of France’s traditional Catholic identity to mobilize voters.
Le Pen insists on a vigorous application of “laicite,” the official church-state separation that enjoys wide support in majority public opinion, especially on the left wing. On closer inspection, her version of “laicite” is aimed against Muslims because it would rule out headscarves, halal meat, Islamic holidays and other religious-based demands.
Conservative candidate Francois Fillon engineered his surprising Republican primary win by wooing traditional Catholics opposed to same-sex marriage. He tapped their network by openly calling himself Christian and expressing a personal opposition to abortion, even though he did nothing to limit it as prime minister from 2007 to 2012.
Centrist Emmanuel Macron performs a balancing act on religion, upholding “laicite” but saying it shouldn’t be pushed too far.
Macron doesn’t talk much about faith but likes to say that he finds “a transcendence in political activity.”
“I think about the nature of my faith all the time, but I have enough humility that I don’t pretend to speak with God,” he told La Vie.
“Mont Saint Michel, the eternal symbol of a France that draws strength and grandeur from its Christian roots.” Marine Le Pen, tweeting from a rally at Mont Saint Michel, the famous medieval monastery off the Normandy coast