NO one can accuse Nicolas Sarkozy of mincing his words over Islam, minarets and national identity. We thought he had retreated after his national debate on French identity began degenerating into a forum for immigrant-bashing. Today, he is back on the parapet, warning Muslims to keep a modest profile or face the failure of moderate Islam in France.
Sarkozy did this in a column for le Monde, drafted by Henri Guaino, his wordsmith on patriotic matters. He started out with sympathy for the Swiss who voted to ban new minarets last week.
The vote showed how important it was for France to define its identity, he said. "Instead of condemning the Swiss out of hand, we should try to understand what they meant to express and what so many people in Europe feel, including people in France. Nothing would be worse than denial."
Sarkozy, of course, called for tolerance and underlined France's respect for all faiths, but his message was heavily aimed at reassuring those who are unhappy about what they see as a threatening Muslim presence.
"Christians, Jews, Muslims, all believers regardless of their faith, must refrain from ostentation and provocation and . . . practise their religion in humble discretion," wrote Sarkozy/Guaino.
Addressing himself to Muslims, he reassured them that he would fight to protect them from discrimination. "But I also want to tell them that anything that could appear as a challenge" to France's Christian heritage and republican values would "doom to failure" moderate Islam in France.
Sarkozy's point was that Muslims must integrate into French society, embracing the Republic's values and traditions. It is legitimate to examine the malaise in Europe, he said, mentioning globalisation as well as Islam. "This dull threat that so many people in our old European nations feel, rightly or wrongly, hanging over their national identity, we have to talk about it together lest repressing this feeling ends up feeding a terrible bitterness."
In taking this line, Sarkozy is rejecting the onslaught from the Left, the intellectual world and some senior figures in his own Gaullist camp over what they see as a political ploy that stigmatises immigrants. Dominique de Villepin, one of three Gaullist prime ministers to disapprove, said yesterday Sarkozy's debate is "rushed and brutal".
Jean-Pierre Raffarin, another former premier, said Sarkozy had launched the sort of discussion people have in the cafe.
His target audience is the conservative and right-wing voters who backed him for the presidency in 2007. He argues that defending national identity is a noble cause, opposed only by the elite. This, he hopes, will benefit his Union for a Popular Movement in regional government elections in March.
One should be careful not to put an "Anglo-Saxon" perspective on this. Disquiet over visible Islam runs across the political spectrum in France. The country subscribes to the doctrine of assimilation and does not approve of separate cultures and "communities". Sarkozy enjoys strong public support for his opposition to Muslim women wearing face-covering in public. The National Assembly is reviewing ways of countering the practice, and may propose an outright ban on the dress next month.
An Ifop survey last week found 46 per cent favoured banning minarets, with 40 per cent against such a prohibition and the rest undecided or indifferent. That is stronger than Swiss poll figures before their vote. Forty-one per cent of the French oppose building mosques, compared with only 19 per cent in favour, the poll showed. France has 64 mosques with minarets but only seven are deemed to be tall ones, says Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux.
The Socialists and much of the wider Left are boycotting the debate, dismissing it as a crude political ploy. About 30,000 people have signed a petition by leading thinkers and politicians that calls for the exercise to be abandoned.
Sarkozy's unabashed campaign is also causing disquiet among quite a few UMP politicians. The line was crossed for them last week when Andre Valentin, a UMP mayor from a northern village, gave offensive endorsement to the debate. "It is time we reacted because we are going to be eaten alive (by immigrants)," he said on television. "There are already 10 million of them, 10 million who are getting paid to do nothing."
Anti-immigrant contributors have showered racist comments on an internet site opened for the debate by Eric Besson, Minister for Immigration and National Identity. These include remarks such as "being France means being white, that's all" and "being French means learning to park your car in a garage to avoid having it set on fire".
The identity debate has confirmed Besson, a former senior Socialist who switched horses during the 2007 election campaign, in the role of hate figure for his former camp.
The left-leaning intellectual world was also appalled when Hitler and the Nazis were brought into the debate by Christian Estrosi, a Sarkozy friend who is Industry Minister and Mayor of Nice. "If, on the eve of the Second World War, the German people had taken the time to ask themselves upon what German identity was based . . . then perhaps we would have been able to avoid the . . . shipwreck of European civilisation," Estrosi said.
Parliament began debating identity this week. The campaign ends in February with recommendations for the government.
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