Cardinal
André Vingt-Trois, the Archbishop of Paris, has accused France’s Education
Minister Vincent Peillon of making “a sort of secular religion” out
of France’s official Church-State division (laïcité).

Mr
Peillon announced last month a “charter of laïcité” for schools and
said state schools, where this is no religious education, would start teaching
“secular morality” next year, the Tablet reports.

Before
the Socialists came to power last year, Mr Peillon wrote an approving book
entitled “A Religion for the Republic” about Ferdinand Buisson, a
militantly anticlerical politician at the time of the 1905 law enshrining
laïcité who argued that schools should promote a “secular faith”
close to his very liberal Protestantism.

In
a public debate with Interior Minister Manuel Valls last week, Cardinal Vingt
Trois said this view violated the religious neutrality the state is supposed to
maintain and laïcité is supposed to uphold.

Its
claim to “eradicate all Judeo-Christian references for a more neutral
vision of the universal” was incoherent, he said.

Mr
Peillon and Mr Valls are among the most active advocates in the Socialist
Government of a strict application of laïcité that clearly limits the role of
religion in public.

Mr
Valls, who is responsible for official relations with religions, rejected
Cardinal Vingt-Trois’ argument.

Mr
Peillon also suggested that schools, public and private, should display the
motto Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and the French and European flags on their
facades as a way to promote “republican values.”

The
secretary-general of the Catholic school system, Pascal Balmand, said posting
the “charter of laïcité” in private schools seemed aimed at stifling
discussion of faith there.

As
for emblazoning France’s famous motto on school facades, Mr Balmand suggested
Catholic schools could add a verse from the Gospels to show they are different
from state schools.