“The fight we have to wage now is very hard, very difficult. Yet we must not take a step back. Not only must we not take a step back but we must manage to convince absolutely secular people, who want a secular school, to speak out. It’s enough that there are a few thousand of us, and no more, in our country saying the things I’m saying. It’s not possible for it to continue like this,” says Elisabeth Badinter, in duplex on the big screen facing an audience of several hundred people gathered in the majestic lounges of the Paris City Hall, this Wednesday, November 8 in the evening. The philosopher received, with her husband, former minister Robert Badinter, a distinction of honor on the occasion of the secularism prize ceremony organized by the Laïcité République Committee, in the presence of the mayor Anne Hidalgo .
On this occasion, Elisabeth Badinter, who was the first president of the jury for this prize in 2003, returned to the Creil scarf affair of 1989 during which she launched an appeal – alongside Régis Debray, Alain Finkielkraut, Elisabeth de Fontenay and Catherine Kintzler – accusing the government of the time of “capitulating”. Which earned them, and all the fierce defenders of secularism, to be accused of “intolerance”, or even, a few years later, to be accused of “racist” or “Islamophobes”. “For I would say around fifteen years, the entryism of radical Islamists has moved to another stage, that of threat,” denounces Elisabeth Badinter. Words which particularly resonate after the numerous assassinations in recent years, notably that of Dominique Bernard, killed in front of his high school in Arras by a radicalized former student on October 13, three years after the attack against Samuel Paty.
“We have long suffered from a lack of visibility in the media with the impression that the question of secularism was not of much interest. Today the news, whether it is the assassination of professors or the tragic events of the Near -Orient, demonstrates that we were right to defend this value”, confided Gilbert Abergel, the president of the Secularism Republic Committee, a few hours before the ceremony. Twenty years after Elisabeth Badinter, the presidency of the jury was this year entrusted to Abnousse Shalmani, journalist (columnist at L’Express), French director and writer born in Iran. In a speech vigorously applauded by a standing room only, the young woman reaffirmed her attachment to republican values today in the sights of many adversaries.
“Neither forgetting nor forgiveness. Never”
“Secularism, it’s strange how this word resonates today, underlined Abnousse Shalmani. This word which should be a refuge for all, because it guarantees the freedom for everyone to live their faith or their atheism in broad daylight, without fear of arrest, torture, death. This word which authorizes the expression of any blasphemous idea within the limits of the law. This word which brings honor to France and which, in the global cultural war , becomes a burden. This word that we must now defend while it defended us until not so long ago, that it protected us, consoled us, reassured us. Secularism, this word that turns around into an insult in the mouth of the enemies of freedom and of France”. Just before going on stage, the intellectual had warned that she would be direct, as usual. “Here we are attacking journalists, cartoonists, police officers, Jews, teachers… All this in the name of Islamism which is the cancer of Islam. It’s starting to be a lot, isn’t it?” she insisted forcefully. Before quoting Helvetius who already wrote, with regard to Catholicism: “There is one case where tolerance can become disastrous to a nation, that is when it tolerates an intolerant religion”.
The national secularism prize was awarded to Michaël Delafosse, socialist mayor of Montpellier. Faithful to his outspokenness, Abnousse Shalmani surprised the audience by specifying in his speech: “This is only my responsibility but I do not give a prize to a socialist (…) I give a prize to a politician who is more courageous than others, it seems. To use Cocteau’s formula, there is no secularism, there are only proofs of secularism… So no, I don’t give him anything, I ready. Too many politicians have betrayed secularism. Too many leftists have sunk into the Islamist camp and I do not forgive them for that. Neither forgetting, nor pardoning. Never.” There was much discussion about the “betrayal” of a part of the left, whose defense of secularism was nevertheless part of the original DNA.
Michaël Delafosse, after receiving the prize from the hands of Richard Malka, known to be the lawyer of Charlie Hebdo, for his part reaffirmed that he would not give up on the founding values of his party, faithful to the heritage of Voltaire, Hugo, Jaurès and Clémenceau. He who worked for the establishment of a public, secular and free educational support system in his city, and was involved in the project of naming a school in Montpellier after Samuel Paty. Many then asked him: “But aren’t you afraid?” “But if I, the mayor, give in to fear, then they have won!” retorted the elected official. The one who continues to work as a history-geography teacher three hours a week wanted to dedicate his prize to his fellow teachers. “Samuel Paty, Dominique Bernard, that’s me. That’s 800,000 people in the classrooms,” he declared.
“The fight has only just begun”
The members of the jury also awarded the international prize for secularism to the Franco-Iranian lawyer Hirbod Dehghani and his sister Hilda who, thanks to a network of correspondents established in Iran, drew up a precise inventory of the abuses committed by the regime of mullahs. “Islam and Islamism, between ideology and spirituality, there is only a hair. This hair for which they kill, this hair which they [NDLR : les résistantes iraniennes] display as a standard of their fight for democracy and freedom, declared Hilda Dehghani. Those who live there, under the yoke of a mafia dictatorship which has established religion as an ideal of society based on sexual apartheid, fight daily at the risk of their lives.
It was then the turn of Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, anthropologist and research fellow at the CNRS, author of the book Brotherhood and its networks (Odile Jacob), to go on stage to receive the “science and secularism” prize. In her speech, the researcher attacked in particular those who “in the name of inclusive secularism defend the absolute relativism which fragments our society, maintain the constant blurring of division and vulnerability to totalitarian ideologies.” The ceremony ended on a lighter note with the presentation of the “culture and secularism” prize to the Troupe du Pompon. Through their room 100% Marianne, which they perform throughout France and in particular in schools, the four actresses approach the question of secularism with humor and pedagogy. The project was born four years ago. “But in 2019 we had no idea that we were going to be so in touch with the news!” exclaimed one of them.
At the cocktail party organized after the ceremony, many members of the public said they were “re-energized” by all the speeches heard during the evening. “This value undergoes such attacks and blows that there is sometimes cause for despair. An event like this is an opportunity to collectively regain courage,” confided Alain Seksig, member of the Council of Elders of Secularism. and the board of directors of the Comité Laïcité République. In the audience, literature professor Delphine Girard, who shares these two functions with Alain Seksig, agreed: “It galvanizes the troops, the activists like us who preach in the desert and fight against windmills. Often alone in the face of public opinion that is far from always favorable to universalism and secularism, especially since the explosion of the conflict in the Middle East. A few minutes earlier, the teacher had read a text dedicated to the school more than ever on the front line after the assassination of her colleagues Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard. Declaring: “If there is one urgent thing, it is to stop the rise of ‘atmospheric jihadism’, as Gilles Kepel says, among our youth. This is a fight for the future and for the future; and here, we all know: it is only just beginning.