The month of Ramadan ended on Sunday, May 1st. On Monday, Muslims will celebrate the festival of Eid-el-Fitr. There were a number of disputes during this period. These were about the presence of MPs at fast-breaking ceremonies, as reported in detail by La Croix. One question in particular arose: Does an MP violate secularism by attending such an event? The mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet, attended such a dinner on April 27 at the Institut français de civilisation musulmane. The Green city councillor was accompanied on this occasion by the prefect and the corps constitués (“constitutional bodies”).
Although the MP described the dinner as a “cordial moment to which non-believing and believing guests of all faiths were invited”, it was also an opportunity for him to assure his “fellow Muslims who are affected by political measures” of his “support”, as reported by the newspaper quoting his words. On social media, his dissenting approach to the religious ceremony of the vows of the jurors was highlighted by some.
Because of his respect for secularism, Grégory Doucet had decided on September 8 not to take part in the Virgin Mary ceremony for the renewal of the vows of the jurors. “In my interpretation of the rules of secularism,” he had confided to BFM Lyon, “I leave it to the faithful to perform this ceremony.” However, he had given a speech on the forecourt of the basilica in which he assured his “total commitment to the defence of secularism, which guarantees to all and sundry the freedom to have religious faith and not to have religious faith”.
However, the mayor of Lyon is not the only elected representative who has attended evenings to celebrate the breaking of the fast. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, visited the Grand Mosque of Paris on April 25 to break the fast. Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the Socialist Party, also attended such an event in Savigny-le-Temple (Seine-et-Marne), La Croix reports. Elsewhere, in the Rhône department, a controversy arose at one of these evenings because La France insoumise had cancelled an “iftar evening” planned for April 29 in Villeurbanne.
The event, announced on the Facebook page of the Union Populaire and with leaflets, proposed “a meal together after breaking the fast […] to talk about the challenges of the neighbourhood and the current national situation”. In the end, after admitting a “semantic clumsiness”, the dinner was cancelled, “in agreement with the Union Populaire at the national level, for fear of the appearance of the extreme right”, as an LFI deputy was quoted in the newspaper. The mayor of the Socialist Party of Villeurbanne, Cédric Van Styvendael, reacted to Le Progrès: “In no case can you use a religious festival for a political event. There is a mixing of the different areas that I cannot approve of”.
