Nicolas Sarkozy believes religious morality is superior to secular morality. Mon Dieu! say French secularists, writes Lara Marlowe.
THE FRENCH writer and statesman André Malraux famously predicted that the 21st century would be the century of religion. President Nicolas Sarkozy seems to have taken Malraux's maxim to heart.
The "inevitable" return of religion to western societies is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, Sarkozy told foreign ambassadors in January.
The French head of state is supposed to be the defender of secularism, the doctrinal cornerstone of modern France. But in a series of speeches over the past three months, Sarkozy has virtually torn up the sacrosanct 1905 Law on the Separation of Church and State.
An increasingly popular concept among French intellectuals is that modern man has lost faith in the basic tenet of the Enlightenment - that scientific progress would inevitably improve the fate of mankind.
In September 2006, Pope Benedict XVI appealed to Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders to fill the void left by the failure of the "isms", to take advantage of the mood of uncertainty and change to reassert the influence of religion.
Sarkozy is the most visible figurehead of a trend that is also touching Spain and Italy. In a letter published on February 1st, Spanish bishops called on their compatriots to vote against José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's socialist party in yesterday's election. Zapatero's chief "sin" was his support for homosexual marriage.
In Italy, too, the Catholic Church is flexing its political muscles. Benedict XVI called on pharmacists to boycott the "morning after" pill.
The church helped defeat a 2005 referendum on assisted procreation, and organised a "Family Day" in May 2007 to defeat a proposal for civil unions between homosexuals.
Sarkozy elaborated his vision of the civilising mission of religion in two speeches, at the Lateran Church of Saint John in Rome on December 20th, and before the Saudi Arabian Consultative Council in Riyadh on January 14th.
Secularism had tried to cut France from her Christian roots, Sarkozy said in Rome. "It should not have. I consider that a nation which does not know the ethical, spiritual and religious heritage of its history commits a crime against its culture."
France needs religion, Sarkozy continued: "A man who believes is a man who hopes. And the interest of the Republic is for there to be many men and women who hope. The disaffection of rural parishes, the spiritual desert of the [ immigrant] suburbs ... the shortage of priests, have not made the French more happy.
"It is in the interest of the Republic for there to be a moral reflection inspired by religious convictions."
Sarkozy's belief that religious morality is superior to morality full stop is particularly enraging to French secularists.
"Secular morality always risks exhausting itself because it is not backed up by a hope that fulfils man's aspiration for the infinite," he said in Rome.
Sarkozy calls for "the advent of a positive secularism" which would "not consider religions as a danger, but as an advantage".
He said he wants "dialogue with the great religions of France and to facilitate the daily life of the main spiritual currents".
To this end, he has invited French religious leaders to join the country's Economic and Social Council.
Sarkozy may have intended to heal the 200-year-old rift between secular and clerical France, but his Rome speech raised an outcry.
The centrist politician François Bayrou accused him of wanting to bring back "the opium of the masses". The socialist leader François Hollande condemned "an old refrain from the clerical right" and the communist deputy Patrick Braouezec rejected the idea that "spirituality and hope could only come from religion".
The Rome speech infuriated French school teachers, who are regarded as the guardians of secularism. "In the teaching of values and the difference between good and evil," Sarkozy said, "the teacher can never replace the priest or the pastor . . . because the teacher will always lack the radical sacrifice of his life and the charisma of a commitment that is based on hope".
The primary school teachers' union virulently condemned Sarkozy's affirmation as "a provocation towards public schools".
Three weeks later in Riyadh, Sarkozy made the more than dubious assertion that Saudi Arabia had reconciled "progress and tradition . . . the profound identity of Islam and modernity".
But his compatriots were most shocked to hear Sarkozy mention God 13 times in the same speech - something none of his predecessors would have dared.
Muslims, Jews and Christians may not believe in the same way, Sarkozy said, but "who could doubt that they speak to the same God in their prayers? Transcendent God who is in the thoughts and heart of every man, God who does not enslave man but liberates him . . . I know of no country whose heritage, culture and civilisation does not have religious roots."
Though Sarkozy said in Rome he would not touch "the overall balance" of the 1905 law on the Separation of Church and State, there is widespread suspicion that he intends to tinker with it, probably by issuing government directives.
As interior minister, Sarkozy created the French Council of the Muslim Faith in 2003, and he is known to favour official financing for mosques, in the belief that this will prevent fundamentalists from congregating in cellars and garages.
He believes that moderate, establishment imams can calm the restive banlieues, the low-income ghettos on the edge of French cities populared by immigrants.
And he wants to allow Muslim, Christian and Jewish plots in public cemeteries, something which secularists refused to do on the grounds it was discriminatory and encouraged sectarianism.
A phobia of sects is concomitant with French secularism. In late February, Sarkozy's cabinet director Emmanuelle Mignon created a scandal by saying that religious sects are a "non-problem" in France and that the Church of Scientology should be allowed "to exist normally if they don't disturb public order". The US actor Tom Cruise, a well-known Scientologist, is a friend of Sarkozy.
The French president calls himself a non-practicing Catholic, and French magazines have published a photograph of his First Communion. But a friend of Sarkozy points out he was raised in the home of his maternal grandfather Benedict Mallah, a Jewish immigrant from Salonika, and says Sarkozy considers himself as much a Jew as a Catholic.
Sarkozy's entourage say he is fascinated by men of religion.
George Bush and Tony Blair, both devout Christians, are his two best friends in international politics. Sarkozy admires the US deeply, and his attitude towards faith is doubtless influenced by US neo-conservatives.
In the era of the "clash of civilisations", defining identity through religion is also a way of addressing fears of a resurgent Islam.
French commentators have suggested an ulterior political motive in Sarkozy's interest in God. The Catholic magazine La Vie reports that 83 per cent of practicing Catholics approved of Sarkozy when he was elected.
But his flashy lifestyle, second divorce and third marriage have reduced their support to 60 per cent.
Sarkozy is often compared to Napoleon Bonaparte, who as Le Monde newspaper noted, had a cynical, political vision of religion.
In 1801, Napoleon signed a concordat with Pope Pius VII, to restore civil and religious peace after the French revolution.
"How can you have order in a state without religion?" Napoleon wrote that year.
"Society cannot exist without inequality in fortunes, and inequality in fortunes cannot survive without religion."
Sarkozy couldn't have said it better.
Lara Marloweis Paris Correspondent.