"No Religious Liberty Please, We're French"

French Move To Reinforce Secular State

Here is the report:

A panel appointed by the French government has produced a charter that aims to keep public institutions, including hospitals, the armed forces, schools and government offices, free from religious influence.

The document comes in the wake of an assault on a doctor by a young Muslim who objected to his wife being examined by a man when she developed complications after childbirth.

The High Council on Integration is recommending to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin that rules protecting the nation’s secular society be even more strictly enforced. The Council is recommending that France recognise a proposed charter that would clearly indicate how church and state should be kept separate in such public spaces. The proposed charter on secular life attempts “to define the rights and obligations of public servants as well as those of users of such
government-provided services”.Plans to draw the line on what is considered unacceptable behaviour in hospitals – behaviour that put patients at risk – were first raised three years ago during the debate over Muslim head scarves. The then-Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said that hospitals would be the next target.

Male doctors, particularly in maternity wards, say they are increasingly subject to insults and physical attacks. These are perpetrated mostly by men opposed to nudity or physical contact with their wives and daughters. The conviction last week of Fouhad BenMoussa highlighted the issue. He had attacked
Dr Jean-Francois Oury, the head of the maternity ward of Robert Debre Hospital in Paris after the doctor manually examined his wife, who had hemorrhaged after giving birth.

“In my religion, a man doesn’t touch a woman,” Ben Moussa screamed, as he slapped and pulled the doctor, according to the testimony. In court, Ben Moussa then claimed his real motivation was modesty, not religion. He was sentenced to a six-month jail term which can be served in part at home.

“I think the Oury case was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Emile Darai, secretary general of the National Congress of French Gynecologists and Obstetricians. The group, unusually, issued a statement in October asking, “Do gynecologists and obstetricians now need police protection to practice?

”The statement affirmed that male and female doctors would treat patients “whatever their sex,” and that a woman has the freedom “to determine contraception, abortion, sterilisation without the permission of her husband.

”The recommendation affirms the rights of patients, but stresses the need for a “balanced approach.” The report said there was no need to legislate on the issue, but highlighted that respect for the functioning of the hospital was vital. It suggested a charter laying out the constitutionally guaranteed principle of secularism be adopted and that pertinent sections be put on display at the relevant institutions.

The charter will remind government-agency employees that while the “freedom of conscience is guaranteed” while they’re on the job, the “constitutional principle of secularism requires [of all citizens] the obligation of [maintaining] strict neutrality” and “equal treatment of all individuals” and the “respect of the freedom of conscience” of others. In other words, no religious proselytising at work, even in subtle ways.

The proposed charter adds that, when a public servant “manifests” his or her “religious convictions during the carrying-out of his or her functions,” in effect that employee’s behaviour “constitutes a dereliction of his or her obligations."

Similarly, the text of the proposed charter also reminds those who use
government agencies’ services that they “must abstain from all forms of proselytising” if or when they avail themselves of such services.

The proposed charter advises members of the public to be cooperative when public servants need to verify a person’s identity. The clear implication of this is that anyone who has their head or face covered will have to uncover if identification is required. The charter would also be distributed at key events, including ceremonies where immigrants are granted French citizenship.

In an editorial, Le Monde says that it is useful to reaffirm the basic
principles of the republican agreement that all French citizens are supposed to share in, which establishes their secular way of life. But “to be obliged to codify some of the rules of communal life in society that should come naturally in a document that comes from the state [itself] – even if it is not a law – reveals the limits of integration policies in a country that [has become] more and more multicultural.

”The fact that the High Council on Integration’s proposed charter has
emerged at all, Le Monde concludes, suggests “a failure of ‘living together,’ a sort of civic fracture that a charter, however useful, will not be enough to diminish."

Hat tip Religion Clause blog