The French Government appears to be lining up for a
full-scale confrontation with the Catholic Church, which is increasingly
trying to interfere in political processes.
The
socialist administration has announced it intends to establish a new
agency to ensure the nation's secularism is protected from religious
extremism.
The agency will monitor extremist groups —
not just Islamists, but of all faiths — and if they show signs of what
the Interior Minister, Manuel Valls (right), called "religious
pathology" legal action to dissolve the organisation will be taken – and
foreign imams preaching hatred and violence will be deported.
Speaking
at a conference on secularism, Mr Valls pointed to the incident last
year when a French Islamist had gone on a killing spree, shooting to
death three soldiers and four Jewish people. He said this illustrated
how quickly religiously radicalised people could turn to violence.
Mr Valls and two other government ministers said that the new agency would
protect and promote the tradition of "laïcité", which is the French
version of secularism. The previous government of Nicolas Sarkozy had
undermined this principle by pandering to the Catholic Church.
"The
aim is not to combat opinions by force, but to detect and understand
when an opinion turns into a potentially violent and criminal excess,"
Mr Valls said. "The objective is to identify when it's suitable to
intervene to treat what has become a religious pathology."
Mr
Valls made clear that this was not an anti-Muslim exercise, but would
cover all religious extremists. He mentioned the ultra-traditionalist
Catholic group Civitas, which has aligned itself with the fascist Front National Party. He said the police were already monitoring Civitas as many of its activities already skirt the law.
Valls
said the government had a duty to combat religious extremism because it
was "an offence to the republic" based on a negation of reason that
puts dogma ahead of the law. He cited extreme religious groups in other
counties, Salafists, ultra-Orthodox Jews and others who sought to
separate themselves from the modern world.
Announcing
his initiative on Sunday, the President, Francois Hollande, said the
new agency would also study ways to introduce classes on secular
morality in state schools.
Education Minister Vincent
Peillon told the conference the classes would stress the French values
of equality and fraternity that teachers say pupils — especially in
poorer areas with immigrant populations — increasingly do not respect.
"We have to teach this and it's not being done," he said. "If we don't
teach it, they won't learn it."
Valls urged the more
militant secularists at the conference not to see religions as sects to
be opposed and to understand that established religions could help fight
against extremists.
"We have to say that religions are not sects,
otherwise sects are religions," he said.
Meanwhile
the confrontation between the Catholic Church and the Government over
plans to legalise gay marriage is ramping up. The Church has called
several large-scale demonstrations throughout the country in opposition
to the plans, while last weekend up to 150,000 people marched through
the streets of Paris in support of the proposals.
Now,
Housing Minister Cecile Duflot has warned that she might soon
requisition unused church buildings in Paris for the homeless this
winter.
She told the Bishop of Paris that she "would not understand if
the church does not share our goal of solidarity".
Ms
Duflot, a Green Party member, denied any connection between her threat
and the debate over gay marriage, which her party vigorously supports.
But Christine Boutin, a Catholic ex-MP accused the Government of
"Cathophobia".