What was intended as a classroom exploration of the freedom of thought has turned into a mini-clash of civilisations.

Ten days later, Paty was killed, allegedly by a Russian-born teenager of Chechen heritage, sending an electric shock into France's long debate about secularism, or laïcité.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, responded by saying France would not "renounce the caricatures".

Since then Macron has been described as mentally ill by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; his ambassador to Pakistan has been summoned to condemn incitement of Islamophobia; and from Sana'a to Riyadh he has become a one-man axis of evil. French products are the subject of a boycott. Le Train Bleu restaurant in Doha, "a quintessential Parisian dining experience" in Qatar, is for instance hurriedly re-sourcing its products.

It would be easy to think that Macron, facing record Covid infections, might look at his in-tray and back off.

But he appears to have done the opposite, ringing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, with the Chechen origins of Paty's alleged assailant in mind, to urge him to redouble Russia's efforts to cooperate on terrorism. Macron has long sought a reset with Moscow by joining forces against terrorism.

The call in some accounts took the form of a lecture, and in others an appeal to cooperate more closely in a common cause.

Either way this is not a fight Macron is likely to abandon. Domestically, he faces the first round of the French presidential elections in April 2022, and his challenge will come from the security-minded right, either the centre-right Les Républicains or the far-right Marine Le Pen, with whom he is neck and neck in the polls. His net disapproval rating as president is -24%.

His calculation will be that so long as he makes the final round, the left as before has nowhere else to go. Being tough on Islamist separatism, and paying a price globally, hardly wounds him with waverers on the right.

But to diminish his conflict with extremism into a narrow calculation of personal political advantage is to misunderstand his intellectual journey on secularism in office, and the way in which the issue is central to his foreign policy outlook including his attitude to Turkey, Russia, Nato and the Middle East.

By raising the stakes, and keeping them high, Macron is also trying to make others recognise they cannot stay neutral.

Macron, after all, had tackled the debate about Islamist extremism before Paty's death in his speech on 2 October on secularism - an hour-long address in which he attempted to be nuanced on how to integrate Islam and French secularism. It contained a number of proposals to regulate imams and mosques.

In the passage has proved most provocative in Turkey, he said: "Islam is a religion that is experiencing a crisis across the world," in reference to Islamic State jihadism and also Wahhabism, the Saudi extremist ideology, and Salafism. "We don't believe in political Islam that is not compatible with stability and peace in the world."

Islamic separatism, which Macron describes as a deviation of Islam, is "a conscious, theorised, politico-religious project, which is materialised by repeated discrepancies with the values of the republic, which often results in the creation of a counter-society and whose manifestations are the dropping out of school of children, the development of sports, cultural and communal practices which are the pretext for the teaching of principles which do not conform to the laws of the republic".

There were also balancing passages about the state as guarantor of the freedom of religion, economic disenfranchisement, and the French colonial legacy.

A complex speech such as this does not take long to be distorted and become a source of grievance abroad, especially in Turkey, since as many as half of the imams in France are Turkish.

But more importantly, Turkey is already in a number of disputes with France. Continue reading

His ambition has caused a furore in France, as he is seen to be tampering with France's secular tradition.

The Church and State have been legally separated since 1905, following a groundswell of change that began with the French Revolution in 1789 and continued during the 19th century.

Macron told a meeting of bishops he hoped to repair relations with the Church through a "dialogue of truth".

"We intuitively share the feeling that the bond between the Church and the state has been damaged, and that both you and I need to repair it.

"Secularism is not meant to deny the spiritual in the name of the temporal, nor to uproot from our society the sacred element which nourishes so many of our fellow citizens."

He said a president of the French republic "who takes no interest in the Church and its Catholics would be failing in his duty".

His views have been met with opposition from former socialist prime minister Manuel Valls who backed Macron for president in 2017, tweeting "secularism is France".

Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure tweeted: "Secularism is the jewel in our crown. That is what a president of the republic should be defending,".

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the left-wing France Insoumise, said Macron's remarks were "irresponsible."

"Macron in full-on metaphysical delirium. Outrageous. One expects a president, one gets a little priest," he tweeted.

Some right-wing leaders are accusing Macron of pandering to conservative voters.

"If it's about acknowledging the Christian heritage of our civilisation, that's a historical and cultural fact. If it's actually a strategy for winning back voters, that's something else," Republican Bruno Retailleau says.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen called his comments the start of an attack on strict secularism enshrined by the 1905 law. She says it hints it would give "religious authorities of all stripes" more influence in French society.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb, who is responsible for government relations with religious groups, supports Macron's views.

In his opinion, Macron's remarks reflect the need for greater spiritual awareness.

Source

• France24
• The Local fr
• The Tablet
• Image: Bloomberg