Posted on 04/04/2005 10:11:18 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
As Catholics mourned the death of Pope John Paul, French leftwingers and a major teaching union criticised the government on Monday for ordering flags on public buildings to be lowered in a sign of respect.
Socialist senator Jean-Luc Melenchon and Yves Contassot, a senior Green party member on the Paris City Council, said the government had abused its powers in ordering the official tribute to the Pope, who died on Saturday.
The Unsa union said the government was guilty of double standards having ordered schools to take part in the tribute to a religious leader but banned Muslim headscarves in state schools in a drive to keep schools firmly secular.
"Let the Christians pay tribute to the head of their church, it's a private matter," Contassot told France Inter radio.
"Today, we have a government and a head of state who, clearly, for political reasons, are trying to take advantage of an issue that is a private matter," he said.
Once so Catholic it was known as the "elder daughter of the Church", France has imposed a strict separation of church and state for 100 years to keep religion from provoking the bloody strife it sparked in previous centuries.
While the leaders of most major political parties have avoided comment, the row also underscores the unpopular government's weakness as it struggles to convince hostile voters to back the European Union Constitution in a referendum next month.
Lowering of flags on all state buildings was "totally out of place and at the limit of legality."
Millions of French are Roman Catholics, and there has been a public outpouring of grief over the Pope's death.
But Melenchon told Europe 1 radio the state was duty bound to observe a strict neutrality and that the flag tribute was a "favour awarded to one particular religion."
In a statement the teachers' union Unsa said the order "to mark the death of a foreign head of state is unusual and constitutionally counter to our principles when it is a question of a representative of a church".
A spokesman for Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin defended the government's move, saying exactly the same tribute had been paid in 1978 on the death of popes Paul VI and Jean Paul I. "It's a republican tradition ... that applies to heads of state in office with which France has special relations or is friendly," the official said.
"The Pope is head of the Catholic Church and head of the Vatican City State" and flags would again be to half mast on Friday when the pontiff is buried.
France also ordered its flags lowered in 1991 on the death of Norway's King Olaf V and in 1989 when Japanese Emperor Hirohito died, the official said.
It's a gesture of respect to a head of state. The pope in his secular capacity is the head of state of Vatican City...and is treated on par with any other head of state. That's why flags here are at half-staff too..
Of course, YOU knew that, but our Froggie friends don't....
This doesn't require differentiation.
Phuc em!
To those leftists: SCR*W "em! May they rot in hell.
If they are referring to the French Revolution, it was those who revolted against the Catholic church that committed the most bloody acts.
Teachers' unions the same the world over.
No more than a teenager who thinks he knows more than Mom and Dad.
I fart in their general direction.
If I was a froggy I'd have a much greater antipathy towards when they did the flag lowering for Hirohito, Hitler's buddy, but since I am not a froggy, I have no clue as to their mindset...
I think I've had a psychotic break of some kind. Maybe more coffee will help....
I am sure when Sadaam is put to death the flags will fly at half then too!
FYI... Stupid French!
Well, you know the french--there are NO world leaders but them.
"FRAAAANCE!!!"
France honors our D-Day vets....
You think you have issues, I'm more Catholic than these Froggies and I'm a Buddhist!
(If I had a flag, I would have lowered it.)
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