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| Crib Flashmob in France Against State Censorship |
(Paris) Is the Christmas crib subversive and seditious? This question is being decided in France according to the judgment of an Administrative Court in Nantes. For years radical secularist circles are increasingly trying to ban Christian symbols from the public space. This includes the removal of Nativity scenes from public. A few days ago an administrative court of Nantes forbade the building of a crib in the General Council Building of the Vendée. The initiative Touche pas à ma crèche has engaged itself against this displacement process. The initiative can be translated into English with "hands off my crib!"
France is experiencing a flash mob this Advent as the nativity scenes appear in public spaces. In response to the anti-Christian efforts of recent years is trying set up cribs large and small in prominent places to reconnect with old traditions in squares and alongside churches.
Is the crib subversive?
Student Group Responds to Ban Ruling of an Administrative Court
The initiative Touche pas à ma crèche was founded by a group students from the Vandée, that northwestern French land in which the Catholic people rose against the Jacobin dictatorship of the French Revolution. The backlash will be an answer to the "ayatollahs of secularism" as it says on the Facebook page of the initiative. The students make living nativity scenes in public spaces and mime the "mighty in charge," whom they name "the Ayatollahs of Secularism", as an expression of the censorship, staging a performance Mary, Joseph, of the angels and the shepherds with sealed mouths.
Crèche partout against the "Ayatollahs of Secularism"
The initiative was triggered by an administrative court judgment of Nantes, which prohibited the establishment of a Nativity scene in a public building of Vandée. The well-known French website Le Salon Beige called for action Crèche partout ("crib everywhere"). The appeal is a reference to the name of the famous rallies Manif pour tous.
According to the Administrative Court of Nantes a nativity scene is a "religious symbol" and therefore incompatible with the "neutrality of the civil service." The Child Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the ox and the ass must not be placed in the building of the General Council of the Vandée this year. An antii-Christian association had complained against the annual erection of a crib and won their case.
"Then the Christmas Lights Should be Banned"
Student Initiative Against Natvity Ban
Many people are outraged. "Then one would have to ban the entire Christmas lights adorning the streets of our cities and towns," angrily responded Bruno Retailleau, the chairman of the UMP in the French Senate. His predecessor, Philippe de Villiers described the court decision as a "totalitarian". France is "Christian soil, and this decision is an expression of poisonous secularism, which disdains our traditions and customs. Will they also prohibit the ringing of bells in the name of dogmatic secularism?"
1905 witnessed the anti-Christian force enact a law that introduced the separation of church and state in a radical form. In 2004, the veiling of Muslim women was banned. Since then, the ruling Socialists insist in this provision as a general ban on religious symbols in public space. A Christian teacher must no longer wear a Cross with a necklace in France, if he wants to keep his job.
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: tempos / Facebook
image: tempos / Facebook
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
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