Even in modern Republican France, where the concept of la laïcité holds sway, the limits to expression on religion is a question that is raised again and again.
France: March 2005, Marithé François Girbaud, a brand of women's clothing, had a billboard—40 metres long—placed on a building on the Avenue Charles-de-Gaulle in Neuilly-sur-Seine. The billboard featured a photograph of twelve beautiful, well-dressed women and one shirtless man posed round a table in the manner of the characters in the painting Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. A Catholic organization complained that the billboard insulted a group of people because of their religion. The court of first instance convicted Girbaud, and ordered the billboard removed. In April 2005, a higher court upheld the conviction. In November 2006, the Supreme Court of Appeal annulled the conviction.
The concept of Laïcité
Laïcité is a concept rooted in the French Revolution, as it started to develop since the French Third Republic, after the Republicans gained control of the state.
The word laïcité has been used, from the end of the 19th century on, to mean the freedom of public institutions, especially primary schools, from the influence of the Catholic Church in countries where it had retained its influence, in the context of a secularization process. Today, the concept covers other religious movements as well.
Proponents assert the French state secularism is based on respect for freedom of thought and freedom of religion. Thus the absence of a state religion, and the subsequent separation of the state and Church, is considered by proponents to be a prerequisite for such freedom of thought. Proponents maintain that laïcité is thus distinct from anti-clericalism, which actively opposes the influence of religion and the clergy. Laïcité relies on the division between private life, where adherents believe religion belongs, and the public sphere, in which each individual, adherents believe, should appear as a simple citizen equal to all other citizens, devoid of ethnic, religious or other particularities. According to this concept, the government must refrain from taking positions on religious doctrine and only consider religious subjects for their practical consequences on inhabitants' lives.
Supporters argue that laïcité by itself does not necessarily imply any hostility of the government with respect to religion. It is best described as a belief that government and political issues should be kept separate from religious organizations and religious issues (as long as the latter do not have notable social consequences). This is meant to protect both the government from any possible interference from religious organizations, and to protect the religious organization from political quarrels and controversies.
Critics of laïcité argue that it is a disguised form of anti-clericalism and infringement on individual right to religious expression, and that, instead of promoting freedom of thought and freedom of religion, it prevents the believer from observing his or her religion.
Another critique is that, in countries historically dominated by one religious tradition, officially avoiding taking any positions on religious matters favors the dominant religious tradition of the relevant country. Even in the current French Fifth Republic (1958–), school holidays mostly follow the Christian liturgical year, that include Christmas and holiday seasons, though Easter holidays have been replaced by Spring holidays which may or may not include Easter, depending on the vagaries of the liturgical calendar. However, schools have long given leave to students for important holidays of their specific non-majority religions, and food menus served in secondary schools pay particular attention to ensuring that each religious observer may respect his religion's specific restrictions concerning diets.
There is an article on Limits to expression on religion in France by Esther Janssen, published in: Agama & Religiusitas di Eropa, Journal of European Studies, Volume V – nr. 1, 2009, p. 22-45, and produced in cooperation between the University of Indonesia and the Delegation of the European Commission, that deals with this question.
It places the relevant provisions in French law and national case law concerning expression on religion within the context of the strict separation of the state and the church in France, known as la laïcité. Subsequently, it analyzes whether French case law complies with the relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights.
This is the Abstract . . .During the last decade conflicts about expression on religion have increased globally. Generally, these conflicts are regarded as a conflict between freedom of speech and freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In France there are many active religious interest groups that aim to protect a certain religion in society. They often initiate judicial proceedings seeking to prohibit certain kinds of speech on their religion. This practice has resulted in a rich case law on the limits of expression on religion in films, film posters, advertising, satirical cartoons and literature.
In France special emphasis is placed on the neutrality of the state and the public sphere. The strict separation of the state and the church, la laïcité, originates in La loi de 1905. Accordingly, in cases concerning expression on religion the French judge clearly distinguishes different degrees of the public nature of speech. However, even for French judges it is difficult to remain neutral. In past case law, the judiciary seems to have attempted a reintroduction of the offence of blasphemy and to have taken into account the point of view of the Catholic Church for the assessment of the insulting character of speech. What is more, in the famous Giniewski case the French judge protected catholic citizens that felt offended by certain speech, but the European Court of Human Rights corrected France and gave priority to a free historical debate. In its recent case law the European Court of Human Rights increasingly discerns unprotected attacks on a religion from protected critique on religious dogmas and institutions. Recent French case law, including the national affair of the Danish cartoons ‘Charlie Hebdo’, in which the judge allowed critical speech on religion as part of political and public debate, is in line with this European development.
Janssen mentions the Alliance générale contre le racisme et pour le respect de l'identité française et chrétienne, AGRIF which is a French organization tied to the far right and Catholic integrism that fights against speech it considers to violate French hate speech laws by being hateful towards Christians or the French people. Recognized as an anti racism organization by the French court system, the organization has brought several cases before court and won a few cases in the Court of Cassation in the 1990s, but has had little legal success more recently.
IntegrismThe agenda of integrists is political. Integrism (French: Intégrisme) is a term coined in 19th and early 20th century polemics within the Catholic Church, especially in France, as an epithet to describe those who opposed the "modernists" who had sought to create a synthesis between Christian theology and the liberal philosophy of secular modernity. Integrism is often referred to as Catholic Integralism.
Integrists taught that all social and political action ought to be based on the Catholic Faith. They rejected the separation of church and state, arguing that Catholicism should be the proclaimed religion of the state.
Many of the positions of integrism on the necessity of the subordination of the state to the Church go back to the teachings of medieval popes such as Pope Gregory VII and Pope Boniface VIII. But Integrism in the strict sense came about as a reaction against the political and cultural changes which followed the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
The nineteenth century papacy challenged the growth of liberalism (with its doctrine of popular sovereignty) as well as new scientific and historical methods and theories (which were thought to threaten the special status of the Christian revelation).
Pope Pius IX condemned a list of liberal and Enlightenment ideas in his Syllabus of Errors. The term Integrism did not, however, became popular till the time of Pope St. Pius X, whose papacy lasted from 1903 to 1914. Supporters of Pius X's encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, which condemned Modernism, called themselves Catholiques intégraux (integral Catholics), from which the word intégrisme (Integrism) and intégralisme (Integralism) were derived.
Integrists were originally ultramontane, that is a view that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the pope. But since the Second Vatican Council, that took place 1962-65, this has caused tensions within Integrism since the post-conciliar popes no longer support Integrism.
“Apart from the practical difficulties of bringing their ideals to fruition without hierarchical support, contemporary [integrists] face the problem of advocating for a maximal stance toward papal and hierarchical authority at a time when they are in tension with, if not outright opposition to, the pastoral and theological lines of that very authority.”
This led some integrists to oppose the post-conciliar popes.
As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has noted, among the "younger generation" of Catholics there has recently been a revived interest in integrism, manifested in websites such as The Josias.
Anti-French and anti-Christian Racism? A Front National ploy?Ironically it was a change to the French Law on the Freedom of the Press of 29 July 1881 in 1972 that outlawed hate speech and gave anti-racist organizations the right to bring charges in such cases. The provision, known as Loi Pleven, was generally understood to protect vulnerable minorities and all cases brought before the Court of Cassation (France) before 1993 involving minorities, but the law was written in race neutral language.
French court upholds Holocaust denial conviction of Jean-Marie Le Pen
Le Pen will be fined more than $30,000 for his remark.
Jerusalem Post March 31, 2018
Following electoral successes for Jean Marie Le Pen and Front National (FN), AGRIF was started by a member of the European Parliament for FN, Bernard Antony, in 1984 to fight against what the organization referred to as anti-French and anti-Christian racism. Antony was a leader for the traditionalist Catholic and integrist fraction of FN. He later left the party and ran unsuccessfully for Party of France in 2009.
After a legal waiting period after establishment of five years, AGRIF brought a case for recognition the organization as an anti-racism organization for the court to decide in 1989. A tribunal court in Paris initially refused to accept the organization's legal standing as it didn't consider it a legitimate anti-racism organization, but this decision was overturned by the appellate court of Paris and in 1991 the Court of Cassation recognized AGRIF as having legal standing as an anti-racism organization, stressing the neutral language of the hate speech regulation that the court found did not exclude non-majority groups like French people and Christians from being possible subjects of punishable racism.
AGRIF sued writer Marek Halter and the Le Figaro for defamation against Catholics for an assertion in the newspaper by Halter that the Catholic churches in Eastern Europe were "archaic, xenophobic, often racist and anti-semitic."
The appellate court of Paris acquitted Halter and Le Figaro on the basis that the statement only referred to some Catholic churches at a certain place and time and did not refer to Catholicism itself.
The case came for the Court of Cassation in 1993. AGRIF referred to a 1991 Court of Cassation decision where the court had found that accusations that American Jews exploited Holocaust for their own interest constituted hate speech against Jews even if the statement only referred to a sub-group of Jews, and argued that this also meant that statements that only targeted part of the Catholic community could constitute hate speech. The Court of Cassation, citing both its 1991 decision on AGRIF and its 1991 decision on American Jews, ruled that Halter's statement about the Eastern Churches targeted Christians in Eastern Europe in a way that violated the hate speech provision. After a retrial at the appelate court of Orleans where Halter and Le Figaro were found guilty of defamation of Catholics, the Court of Cassation upheld the conviction in 1995.
In the mid-1990s, AGRIF also got the support of the Court of Cassation in three other cases of alleged anti-Catholic hate speech, including one case against Charlie Hebdo.
After that time however, the Court of Cassation would mostly rule against AGRIF. Legal experts attribute this to a legal reform that made it easier to appeal decision to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which more strongly tended to rule in favor of free speech, and did not typically interpret hate speech law to protect majority groups. In the 2006 Giniewski v. France case, the ECHR in a chamber judgement ruled that a civil case decision by the Orléans Court of Appeal upheld by the Court of Cassation where Paul Giniewski had been obligated to pay one Franc to AGRIF as damages for implying Veritatis splendor could be linked to the Holocaust violated Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
European Court of Human Rights
Case of Giniewski v. France
Dirk Voorhoof
Ghent University (Belgium) & Copenhagen University (Denmark) & Member of the Flemish Regulator for the Media
In 1994, the newspaper Le quotidien de Paris published an article with the headline “The obscurity of error”, concerning the encyclical “The splendour of truth” ( Veritatis Splendor ) issued by Pope John Paul II. The article was written by Paul Giniewski, a journalist, sociologist and historian and contained a critical analysis of the particular doctrine developed by the Catholic Church and its possible links with the origins of the Holocaust. A criminal complaint was lodged against the applicant, the newspaper and its publishing director, alleging that they had published racially defamatory statements against the Christian community. The defendants were found guilty of defamation at first instance but were acquitted on appeal. Ruling exclusively on the civil claim lodged by the Alliance générale contre le racisme et pour le respect de l'identité française et chrétienne (General Alliance against Racism and for Respect for the French and Christian Identity - AGRIF), the Orléans Court of Appeal ruled that Giniewski was to pay damages to the AGRIF and that its decision was to be published at his expense in a national newspaper. The Orléans Court of Appeal considered the article defamatory toward a group of persons because of their religious beliefs. The applicant unsuccessfully contested the decision before the French Supreme Court.
In a judgment of 31 January 2006, the European Court of Human Rights holds that the article in question had contributed to a debate on the various possible reasons behind the extermination of Jews in Europe: a question of indisputable public interest in a democratic society. In such matters, restrictions on freedom of expression are to be strictly interpreted. Although the issue raised in the present case concerned a doctrine endorsed by the Catholic Church, therefore a religious matter, an analysis of the article in question showed that it did not contain attacks on religious beliefs as such, but a view which the applicant had wished to express as a journalist and historian. The Court considered it essential that a debate on the causes of acts of particular gravity, resulting in crimes against humanity, take place freely in a democratic society. The article in question had, moreover, not been “gratuitously offensive” or insulting and had not incited disrespect or hatred. Nor had it cast doubt in any way on clearly established historical facts.
From this perspective, the facts were different from those in I.A. v. Turkey regarding an offensive attack on the Prophet of Islam (see IRIS 2005-10:3) and those in R. Garaudy v. France. The Court considered that the reasons given by the French courts could not be regarded as sufficient to justify the interference with the applicant's right to freedom of expression. Specifically with regard to the order to publish a notice of the ruling in a national newspaper at the applicant's expense, the Court considers that while the publication of such a notice did not in principle appear to constitute an excessive restriction on freedom of expression, the fact that it mentioned the criminal offence of defamation undoubtedly had a deterrent effect. The sanction thus imposed appeared disproportionate with regard to the importance and interest of the debate in which the applicant had legitimately sought to take part. The Court therefore held that there has been a violation of Article 10 of the Convention.
References
Arrêt de la Cour européenne des Droits de l'Homme (deuxième section), affaire Giniewski c. France, requête n° 64016/00 du 31 janvier 2006 FR (Judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), case of Giniewski v. France, Application no. 64016/00 of 31 January 2006)
R. Garaudy v. France, ECHR, 24 june 2003, nr. 65831/01, Decision on admissibility EN
This article has been published in IRIS Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory.
IRIS 2006-4:2/1
© European Audiovisual Observatory
Veritatis splendor (Latin: The Splendor of the Truth) is an encyclical by Pope John Paul II. It expresses the position of the Catholic Church regarding fundamentals of the Church's role in moral teaching. The encyclical is one of the most comprehensive and philosophical teachings of moral theology in the Catholic tradition. It was promulgated on 6 August 1993.
This encyclical responds to questions of moral theology that had been raised during the postconciliar period of the Church (events after the Vatican II ecumenical council of 1962-65). These questions revolve around man's ability to discern good, the existence of evil, the role of human freedom and human conscience, mortal sin, and the authority of the magisterium of the Catholic Church in guiding man. In response to these, Pope John Paul II emphatically says that moral truth is knowable, that the choice of good or evil has a profound effect on one's relationship with God, and that there is no true contradiction between freedom and following the good. Veritatis splendor consists of three chapters: (I) Teacher, What Good Must I Do; (II) Do Not Be Conformed to this World; and (III) Lest the Cross of Christ be Emptied of its Power.
Veritatis splendor begins by asserting that there are indeed absolute truths accessible to all persons. Contrary to the philosophy of moral relativism, the encyclical says that moral law is universal across people in varying cultures, and is in fact rooted in the human condition. Pope John Paul teaches that no matter how separated someone is from God, "in the depths of his heart there always remains a yearning for absolute truth and a thirst to attain full knowledge of it." He goes on to say that the splendor of truth "shines forth deep within the human spirit."
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