French President Emmanuel Macron has been criticized by opponents for what they said was a violation of the principle of secularism after attending a ceremony on Thursday to mark the start of Hanukkah, a Jewish religious holiday, at his Elysee Palace.
He had earlier on Thursday received the Lord Jakobovits Prize, awarded to European heads of state who fight against anti-Semitism, at the palace.
However, a short video clip later published on social media that also shows France’s Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia lighting the first candle at the Elysee as Macron watches, stirred the controversy.
Photo: AFP
France’s laws on state secularism, passed in 1905, give everyone in France the freedom to worship as they wish, but specify that religion should play no part in the running of the state.
Hard-left Les Insoumis party deputy Manuel Bompard wrote on social network X: “Saturday, we are celebrating the anniversary date of the 1905 law on the separation of churches and state. Macron is trampling it when organizing a religious ceremony at the Elysee. An unforgivable political fault.”
Even Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, described the ceremony as “a mistake.”
“It is not the place of the Elysee to light a Hanukkah candle, because the Republican DNA is to stay away from anything religious. This is not traditionally the role of the public authorities,” Arfi said on Sud Radio.
Macron told reporters during a visit to Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on Friday that he did not regret his gesture, adding he was “respectful of secularism” but that “secularism is not about wiping out religions.”
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne also defended Macron’s gesture, saying it was intended to “show support” of the Jewish community at a time of mounting anti-Semitism in France.
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