The presence of the French President was aroused Emmanuel Macron Lighting Hanukkah candles (the Jewish Festival of Lights) at the Elysee was controversial in France as a departure from secularism, at a ceremony on the occasion of the European Rabbinical Conference, which presented the President with the Lord Jacobowitz Award, as a reward for combating “anti-Semitism.”
Le Point magazine spoke about the subject of this controversy, with Benjamin Morell, a lecturer in public law at the University of Paris II, who confirmed that lighting candles is a “religious act,” no matter what Macron said about it.
The law professor added that this was an “attack on secularism,” and that the head of state had actually violated (Georges Benjamin) Clemenceau’s legislation, which allows the president and ministers to attend Mass personally, not as public employees, and this is what the two previous presidents did. Charles de Gaulle AndJacques ChiracEven Macron himself did not give a speech or make the sign of the cross in front of the coffin when he attended a mass honoring French rock icon Johnny Hallyday.
Macron defended the state’s neutrality and said, “Secularism does not mean erasing religions or interfering with religion. Rather, it means requiring citizens, whatever their religion, to absolutely respect the laws of the republic. This is all, nothing more and nothing less.”
When asked: Does this celebration show an “open” and expanded concept of secularism? The law professor responded that the matter is not only about secularism, but rather about the universality that carries this secularism, and Macron gives the impression that republican universalism is impossible, because society is homogeneous groups living side by side, even though the constitution does not recognize the existence of different societies, but rather one society in which everyone merges.
As for the political consequences that may result from this celebration, the professor considers one of them to be the exacerbation of threats against French citizens of the Jewish faith, because this ceremony will serve as fuel for all anti-Semitic conspiracies, and will open “Pandora’s” box (the box of evils in Greek mythology). Why not have a celebration? Christian or Islamic? If I am not a believer, who represents me? Morell asks.
Finally – as Benjamin Morell says – “It will be difficult to make students understand the principle of secularism, after the abaya is banned in school, and what can we say to the mayors whose nurseries were condemned by the administrative judge, when the president accepts religious celebrations in the Elysee?”
