Rite & Reason: The French president wants to replace the doctrinaire secularism that excludes religion from schools with a more open spirit of inquiry, writes Kevin Williams
Despite his propensity for the unconventional gesture, a recent dramatic intervention by Nicolas Sarkozy will come as a great surprise to many. In an open letter to French educators on September 4th, 2007, he proposes that religion should no longer be left at the school door and that it should actually be taught in the classrooms of France.
It is surprising, firstly because of the country's passionate commitment to the principles of laïcité, that is non-confessionalism or civic neutrality. In France the law of separation between church and state is envisaged as serving to protect citizens from the encroachment of religion into their lives via (normally) the Catholic Church.
Traditionally the primary school teacher (l'instituteur) and the local priest (le curé) are rivals for the hearts and minds of the young.
It is also surprising on account of France's history of militant secularism, a mindset that remains common among French teachers.
This attitude is well captured in the remarks of a teacher who tells her pupils that "everyone knows that God does not exist, so let's move on to something more interesting".
Yet the French have been coming around to the view that some teaching of religion is necessary. Recent years have seen a formal recommendation based on a report by philosopher Régis Debray that teachers should teach about religion (enseigner le fait religieux) as it comes up in their subjects.
Underlying this policy is a very firm commitment to what is conceived to be an academic, detached, neutral approach to the topic of religion. The laïc spirit underpinning the policy is not hostile to religion and, rather than being doctrinaire secularism, seeks to promote an open attitude to all worldviews. There has been a movement away from a rigidly secular form of laïcité to a laïcité of openness.
This movement has been reinforced by President Sarkozy's intervention. Firstly, though, he takes pains to affirm his commitment to the principles of laïcité as the best way to maintaining peaceful relations between religions and combating any tendency towards religious segregation within society. But he goes on to argue that it is now time to accommodate the study of religion in French schools in order that young people can better understand religious faith.
Religious and spiritual inquiry, he argues, has always been a feature of human civilisations and so needs to be studied in school. He also suggests that through the study of religion people will become more open to others and more capable of entering into dialogue with them.
It is time, he argues, to cease leaving religion at the door of the school while at the same time, he insists, avoiding any suspicion of proselytising intent. The letter also refers to the need to avoid any aim of theological formation.
One reason for this warning is because the French think that the proper teaching of religion has to be rooted in theology and hence has to be in this sense confessional. According to this argument, it is hard to see how we can actually teach religion in a serious sense without initiation into a particular religion.
To attempt to teach religion without such a specific focus would be like hoping to teach sport without actually teaching children to play a specific game or activity, or to teach languages without teaching a particular language. Ironically the home of laïcité in schooling has always shared the same vision of religious education as conservative believers.
Sarkozy's proposal that the teaching of religion must be conducted in a strictly academic spirit will also give pause to some French philosophers who argue that the study of religion should not be given separate status as a field of knowledge.
What is taught in other countries in the form of history of religions or sociology of religion belongs within the disciplines of sociology and history and so does not merit being taught as a special field or area in schools or universities.
Most of all implementation of Sarkozy's suggestions would meet with stern resistance from militant secularists.
The irony is that the Alsace region and the department of Moselle enjoy a historic right to have optional confessional religious education included in the school day as part of publicly-funded educational provision. This has not at all compromised the French republican ideal of laïcité.
If young people are to acquire an understanding of what religion means to believers, schools have to provide a serious encounter with religious belief. On account of its range and complexity, the religious response to the world requires a specialised and focused attention. It could not be expected to receive this via the current cross-disciplinary study of religion.
Faith is too all-embracing a human practice to be understood without some imaginative dwelling with what it means to believers.
To this end President Sarkozy's proposal has much to recommend it.
• Dr Kevin Williamslectures in Mater Dei Institute, Dublin City University and is author of Faith and the Nation: Religion, Culture and Schooling in Ireland