Madam, - Kevin Williams, in his comments about Nicholas Sarkozy (Rite and Reason, November 6th) does not seem to have understood either the president's message or the French republican concept of laïcité.
The principle of laïcité - secularism - has always been very hard to understand for those living in Anglo-Saxon countries, and especially here in Ireland.
Laïcité seeks to accept all religions without distinction and give all of them the freedom to be practised. The most important feature of this principle is that it protects the religious neutrality of the public sphere and places religion and religious practice within the realm of the private sphere.
This is not to reject the notion of religion - far from it. I attended a French secular republican school throughout first and second level and I never heard one word from my teachers against the principle of religion. We had - and French pupils still have - one day off a week to allow parents to give their children some lessons in religion - or music lessons if they preferred! To make up for this, French pupils go to school from 9am to 5pm and on Saturday morning as well. This system has been working in France since 1905, when the law for the separation of Church and State was passed by the French Parliament.
I have read President Sarkozy's letter of September 4th to teachers. He said: "If I want the school to remain secular it is because secularism - for me - is a principle of mutual respect, because it opens a space for dialogue and peace between the religions, [ and] because it's the best means to fight against religious [ sectarianism]."
All that the President said in his letter is that the "religious facts" - note, he does not say "religion" - must be taught at school, "not in a theological way but through a sociological, cultural, historical analysis. The spiritual [ and] the sacred are linked to the human adventure. . .they are at the sources of all the civilisations."
That's exactly what all my history teachers and my primary school teachers taught me. I don't know where Kevin Williams met the French teacher whom he quotes as saying: "Everyone knows that God does not exist so let's move on to something more interesting". By contrast, everyone in France knows that the teachers in the state schools are civil servants and so have the duty to be neutral about religion. Nothing more, nothing less. - Yours, etc,
YOLAINE MAILLET, Balbriggan, Co Dublin.