Secularism: Everyone Wants to Get Rid of It
by Yves Mamou, Gatestone Institute:
Can a French municipality erect a statue of the Virgin Mary in a public park? The answer is No. France’s Administrative Court has given the mayor of Publier, in eastern France (population 6500), three months to comply with the ban on religious symbols in public spaces and to remove the statue. If the municipality fails to do so, it will be fined €100 ($105) a day. Mayor Gaston Lacroix said he will try to relocate the marble statue on private land.
France’s 1905 Law on the Separation of the Churches and the State (Article 2) states that “The Republic does not recognize, pay or subsidize any religious sect”; article 28 prohibits any religious symbol on public monuments.
The Virgin May statue in Publier, on the bottom of which is inscribed “Our Lady of Geneva Lake watch over your children”, has a long story. It was installed in the town park in August 2011, without debate. The statue was acquired with taxpayer money: €23,700 (USD $26,000). Acknowledging at the time that he had “joked a little with the 1905 law” on the separation of church and the state, the mayor had to sell the statue to a local religious association.
Now, the mayor has to remove the statue from the public park. He tried to privatize the piece of land where the statue is erected, but the land-sale project was rejected by the court.
This story of a statue of the Virgin Mary illustrates the difficulties of secularism, the defense of French identity, the fight against Islamism, and the contradictory interests of different political parties in France.
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