Council of secularism of Chambéry: what secularism are we talking about?

The Council of Secularism of Chambéry, installed on May 30, wants to be “a place of exchange around the questions of secularism and living together”. It is “composed of experts in secularism, representatives of the State and of religions and beliefs existing in the municipality, elected officials and members of associations, with an equal number of women and men. It is an advisory body on questions of secularism whose objective is to promote harmony. Particular attention is paid to parity in the composition of this council because women are very present in religious bodies and associations”.

Who are the forty-two members of this plethoric council which, as announced by the Divers Left mayor, Thierry Repentin, will be consulted “on issues of secularism, diversity and respect for the convictions of citizens” and will encourage “local projects around living together” while “guaranteeing the neutrality of public power”? In addition to ten elected officials and five qualified personalities, it brings together institutional and associative representatives (Directorate of departmental services of National Education, prefecture of Savoy, League of Human Rights, League of Education, Federation of Secular Works of Savoie, Departmental Association for the development and coordination of actions with foreigners in Savoie).

But we don’t stop there, there is also this astonishing “College of representatives of associations, cults, convictions and movements of thought” which brings together all the cults present in the territory: the Jewish community of Savoy, the Catholic Diocese of Chambéry, the United Protestant Church of Savoy, the National Council of Evangelicals of France, the Departmental Committee for Muslim Worship of Savoy, the Worship Association of the highly controversial Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Buddhist tradition, the Association of Protestant family cohesion in Savoy, to which is added the Fédération du scoutisme français, of which five of the six member associations are attached to a denomination.

Are we here in a body placed under the aegis of a town hall which “intends to bring secularism to life in Chambéry” or in an interreligious assembly whose raison d’être and concern are the search for the convictional well-being of the communities? and respect for their practices? When we know that the town hall of Chambéry was advised by Convivencia, we will not be surprised by the composition of this council.

Convivencia, the lucrative little sister of Coexister, interconvictional like its parent company, was created in 2015 by Samuel Grzybowski and Victor Grèzes “to help businesses and communities value religious diversity and fight prejudice”. Everywhere it helps to give pride of place to religion under the guise of “inclusive” secularism and the pretext of respect for differences and “tolerance of each other’s beliefs”.

Convivencia, chaired by Victor Grèzes and whose website is very sparse with information on the company’s activity, has advised, for example, Decathlon, Michelin, Orange and Total. For the latter, she participated in the design of the Practical Guide on the consideration of religion in the group. Among the advice to managers: do not restrict the wearing of religious signs or clothing; consider providing prayer rooms; in the name of “respect for others”, relativize the scope of certain behaviors, for example those of men towards women.

Attributed to religion alone, they would in fact be “the heritage of ancient traditions or religions.” Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish what comes from religious observance from what comes from traditions inherited and transmitted from generation to generation. How beautifully said! But unsurprisingly when one is interested in Convivencia as in Coexister, the main thing is that, within companies as well as in the educational institution, diversity rhymes with the free expression of religion, even if this means imposing on women , in the name of religion, discriminatory male behavior.

Convivencia’s clients also include public organisations. This reality is not surprising given the powerful political and institutional support from which Convivencia and Coexister benefited, mainly that of the late Observatory of Secularism, which distinguished them with a prize for secularism from the French Republic. But it greatly questions the capacity for discernment of public procurement.

So it was with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Ministry of Justice, which bought from Convivencia Conseil, for an amount of 267,000 euros, as indicated in a report by the General Inspectorate of Finance, training services (discrimination, religion, secularism, living together and radicalization) for the National School of Prison Administration and the National School of Judicial Protection of Youth.

More recently, Convivencia advised La Gazette des communes, the reference weekly for local authorities, for the drafting of its “Guide to secularism for local authorities” published as a special issue at the end of June 2022, “genuine advertising medium for Convivencia: full-page interview with its founder, “reports” on actions carried out by the firm for local authorities, and even a glowing citation from a website, “e-secularism”, which is nothing more than a website commercial offering the services of Convivencia”, as pointed out then Gilles Clavreul, former delegate of the DILCRAH.

With local authorities, the field of intervention that has opened up to the consulting firm is limitless. We were rightly concerned, along with McKinsey, about the influence of private firms on public action. With Convivencia, you have to worry about that too. Has Chambéry fallen into the Convivencia panel or does the town hall feel like it is in sync with the defenders of a very accommodating secularism à la Baubérot, of which Jean-Louis Bianco, Samuel Grzybowski and Victor Grèzes are the spokespersons?

For Thierry Repentin, would the search for a new social cohesion go through ecumenical accommodations resulting in the juxtaposition, on the Anglo-Saxon model, of identity and religious communities that tolerate and tame each other at best? With a secularism synonymous with freedom of religion – a concept absent, it must be remembered, from French law, which only recognizes freedom of conscience and the free exercise of worship, we are swimming in the full mix of genres, in full confusion of registers, confusion that the League of Human Rights and the League of Education, also members of the Secularism Council of Chambéry and whose anti-secular excesses are well known, are working to maintain. The interreligious worm is definitely in the fruit of secularism.

In any case in Chambéry, we don’t do things by halves and we are consistent. We get advice from Convivencia and we invite Valentine Zuber, “specialist in the history of religious freedom in Western Europe and secularism in France and around the world”, for an inaugural conference. Gold Valentine Zuber is not just anyone. Director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes, holder of the “Religions and International Relations” chair, associate member of the group Sociétés religions laïcités created in 1985 by Jean Baubérot, she is also close to this “great thinker of the secularism”. It is part of this ideologically coherent network of influence which, through organizations with interlocking organizational charts (IREL, Observatoire de la laïcité, Vigie de la laïcité, Coexister, Convivencia, Enquête), defends a religious society under the banner of ” positive secularism” or “open secularism” and orients society towards the Anglo-Saxon concept of communal tolerance.

According to them, this vision would be more suited to the renewal of religious belief and to the ethnic and denominational multiculturalism of today’s France, but above all it is perfectly in tune with, on the one hand, the ideological positioning of the Union. European Union, originally a Christian-democratic project, for which religions “create European social ties” and give a “soul to Europe”, to use the expression of Jacques Delors, with on the other hand the will of the cults to once again play a central role in the City. Valentine Zuber in her May 30 lecture insisted: “A society whose secularism would be the extinction of religion and groups would be a totalitarian society. “A certain art of influencing minds by summoning a few scarecrows and creating confusion on a subject that is often poorly understood.

What secularism will the Chambery Secularism Council promote and defend? The harmonious coexistence of religions? We are entitled to question ourselves. In the reflection that led to the installation of this assembly, secularism was misguided from the outset: from a constitutional principle, it was reduced to a subject of exchanges at the height of the very weak notion of “living together” and it is ultimately considered only as one religion among others (probably that of atheists!), not as a pillar of the Republic. It will be necessary to follow the work of this consultative body carefully, which could be tempted to propose unreasonable arrangements to municipal officials.

*Aline Girard is General Secretary of Laïque Unit.