Allahicity, the New Republican Religion!
A French opposition councilor exposed progressive double standards on religious visibility by reciting a Hail Mary after the mayor defended hijabs in council sessions.
The incident unfolded in the municipal council of Ivry-sur-Seine, a former communist stronghold in the Paris suburbs where red flags once symbolized working-class solidarity. Today, as Causeur reports, the political landscape has shifted dramatically, with the local left appearing to have traded the blue overalls of the proletariat for the hijab and djilbab of what they term “racialized” communities.
An opposition councilor proposed a straightforward measure: inscribing in the municipal council’s internal regulations a ban on conspicuous religious symbols during sessions, invoking a strict conception of secularism that views elected assemblies as spaces requiring symbolic neutrality.
The mayor rejected this proposal outright, arguing that diversity had become a supreme value that trumped traditional secular principles. Religious visibility, he maintained, should be celebrated as an expression of this diversity rather than questioned as a challenge to the secular character of political space.
Taking the Mayor at His Word
The opposition councilor then executed what Causeur describes as an unforgivable act in an era when grand principles resemble family porcelain displayed behind glass but never touched for fear of discovering cracks: he took the mayor at his word.
If visible religious expression had indeed become a component of this celebrated diversity, if spiritual conviction displayed in the council chamber was no longer a breach of secular ideals but rather an enrichment of republican life, then the councilor decided to push this logic to its conclusion. He produced a crucifix and recited a Hail Mary.
The mayor’s reaction was immediate and severe. Far from welcoming this new spiritual contribution to the multicultural banquet with the same enthusiasm he had shown for Islamic religious symbols, the mayor reportedly became enraged, speaking of a political crime and attempting to expel the councilor who had merely applied the mayor’s own reasoning to its logical conclusion.
Progressive Media Cries Foul
Progressive media outlets and elected officials subsequently attempted to frame the incident as an act of Catholic fundamentalism, according to Causeur. Yet the crucifix had not appeared during a routine debate on road maintenance or school renovation. It emerged precisely in response to the mayor’s explicit defense of religious visibility in the council chamber.
The episode reveals what Causeur characterizes as the contradictions of a political family that has gradually abandoned its traditional working-class base. Municipal council meetings, once forums for discussing daily civic management, have become stages where the great ideological and civilizational fractures of the contemporary era manifest themselves behind the most ordinary administrative discussions.
The mayor of Ivry-sur-Seine now takes pride in conspicuous religious markers that previous generations would have viewed as questions about the proper place of the sacred in political space. These symbols have been rebranded as expressions of diversity, a concept that has itself become one of the obligatory catechisms of the current age, celebrated and sanctified in every official discourse with a fervor typically associated with religious conviction.
A Test of Universality
The incident demonstrates that principles must survive what Causeur terms the terrible test of universality. While elected officials are not civil servants and derive their legitimacy from suffrage rather than administrative appointment, any principle defending religious expression in political spaces must apply equally to all faiths.
The mayor’s visceral reaction to Catholic symbolism, contrasted with his celebration of Islamic religious dress, exposes the selective application of diversity principles among French progressive elites. What is presented as universal tolerance reveals itself as particularist accommodation when tested against traditional European religious expression.
Ivry-sur-Seine represents a microcosm of broader transformations in French political culture, where former bastions of secular communism have evolved into laboratories of what critics characterize as Islamist-leftist collaboration. The working-class imagery of metalworkers and miners has given way to Ramadan fast-breaking ceremonies and mosque inaugurations as defining political events.
With information from Causeur
