The Spectator's Notes | 28 July 2016

At the beginning of his war memoirs, Charles de Gaulle famously wrote, ‘All my life I have had a certain idea of France’ and its ‘eminent and exceptional destiny’. It was not only an abstract concept: the picture in his mind was of ‘the Madonna in mural frescoes’. What is President Hollande’s certain idea of France? Presumably it cannot be the Madonna, since Hollande is the child of French laïcité, which creates an unbridgeable gulf between religion and the republic. But what happens when, in the name of one religion, men in France enter the temple of another and slit the throat of a priest, as happened this week near Rouen? The historical justification for laïcité has been that it is necessary to ensure peace and liberty for believers and unbelievers alike. It does not seem to work in modern France, where the political resistance to the discussion of religion is such that a policy against Islamism cannot be formulated. It is actually illegal, for example, for the government to collect religious data on citizens, so no official statistics exist about crimes committed by Muslims. Mainstream politicians in France cling to the republic’s god of non-religion, leaving the field open to wars of religion declared by Muslim extremists and exploited by the Front National. It is time for latter-day de Gaulles to arise prepared to defend their country as part of European, Christian civilisation.

It is good to know that Theresa May, and France’s robust Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, are friends, and have one another’s mobile phone numbers. But the challenge of being Prime Minister, as opposed to Home Secretary, is to conceptualise the problem not only in terms of security, but also of ideology and what sort of a challenge Islamism poses to a free society. I hope the vicar’s daughter will find this easier to express than the hapless Hollande.