The Specter of Catholic Identity in Secular France

Marine Le Pen has a complicated relationship with Catholicism. The twice divorced leader of the National Front, France’s far-right nationalist party, has spoken in favor of women’s abortion rights and won gay and lesbian support. She has doubts about Pope Francis, and during the first round of the French election, she criticized her conservative Catholic opponent Francois Fillon for “the opportunistic use of that faith to defend a certain political line.” This, she said, undermines the principles of French secularism, or laïcité, and is “contrary to our values.”

And yet Le Pen heads a party (despite having temporarily stepped down as National Front leader to focus on the elections) whose mascot is the Catholic saint Joan of Arc; this religious figure stands in contrast to Marianne, the secular symbol of the French she has “a strong faith,” presumably referring to the Catholicism with which she was raised, and feels “fortunate in that I have never doubted it.” And when she defines French identity, she points to the Church at its core: “The principles we fight for are engraved in our national motto: liberty, equality, fraternity,” she at a rally. “That stems from the principles of secularization resulting from a Christian heritage.”