The President of the Republic is at the heart of a controversy after attending the lighting of a candle for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah at the Élysée on Thursday evening.
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Raquel Garrido, La France insoumise MP for Seine-Saint-Denis, in turn criticizes Emmanuel Macron. “It’s complicated to live in a secular country when the president is not secular”, reacts the elected official, invited on franceinfo Saturday December 9. HAS the Élysée Thursday evening, the chief rabbi of France lit a candle for Hanukkah in the presence of Emmanuel Macron during a ceremony which has since caused controversy. Elected officials from all sides have denounced an attack on secularism. Emmanuel Macron’s entourage defended himself, stressing that“attending a religious event does not constitute an attack on secularism“.
The MP of Chilean origin expresses her pride in living in a secular country: “When I arrived in France, I discovered secularism and I love it. I love this idea of keeping the intimacy of one’s faith to oneself and that we generate a common space where politics takes place”she explains. “I thought I had been living in France for 35 years in a secular country, I realize that it is complicated to live in a secular country when the president is not secular”, she reacts. Raquel Garrido’s parents fled the regime of General Augusto Pinochet.
According to the rebellious elected official, the President of the Republic must set an example. “There must be a clear separation of the sphere of the intimate and the sphere of what is common, civil, political. This is the basis of secularism”she insists.
Secularism difficult to explain in class
Raquel Garrido, a lawyer by profession, taught law at university. It demonstrates the difficulty of“explain to a student that he must not ostentatiously demonstrate his religion in the classroom“. According to her, young students are “on Netflix and see the Anglo-Saxon model and all these young people who are in the class with the manifestation of religion. That poses no problem to anyone”, she emphasizes. Behind, the teachers “rament” For “try to make people understand the benefit of redacting certain areas”said the MP.
