80 Europe The EconomistDecember 21st 2019
S
trung acrossthe cobbled street, between half-timbered Alsa-
tian houses, the festive white lights pronounce: “Strasbourg,
capitale de Noël”. In the run-up to Christmas, every façade of this
town tucked up against France’s border with Germany seems to
sparkle. The sweet smell of gingerbread and cinnamon-tinged vin
chaudhangs in the air. In the courtyard of the 18th-century Palais
Rohan, now a municipal museum, a life-size wooden crèche (na-
tivity scene) has been installed, complete with real bleating sheep.
The town hall has illuminated giant angels with trumpets above
the narrow street that leads to the cathedral.
Strasbourg at Christmas captures Europe’s festive enthusiasm
as well as its diverse heritage. The town blends the Catholic tradi-
tion with the Protestant. It is as proud of its many crèches, whose
pre-Reformation roots reach back to medieval times, as it is of its
Christmas trees, which legend says Martin Luther introduced in
the 16th century. Indeed Strasbourg is said to be the birthplace of
the first decorated tree, in 1605, adorned then with roses, apples,
wafers and sweets. Closer to Munich than it is to Paris, annexed by
Germany in 1871 and 1940, Strasbourg reflects the Germanic. Locals
call the Christmas market, founded in 1570 and one of the world’s
oldest, Christkindelsmärik. With its Provençal clay crèche village
figures (santons), and Scandinavian bearded gnomes (tomte), the
market embraces the Mediterranean and the Nordic too.
These days Christmas time in this town, as elsewhere in Eu-
rope, also has a strong secular pull. Strasbourg in the festive season
in reality mixes the commercial and the spiritual, as tacky plastic
ornaments and winking Father Christmas figures compete for at-
tention with the crucifix and holy child. A massive 2m visitors, of
all faiths, crowd into the town in December every year. One of the
five people murdered in a terrorist attack near the Christmas mar-
ket a year ago was a local garage mechanic of Afghan origin, who
had been visiting the market with his family.
Strasbourg’s unapologetic embrace of Christmas, in other
words, locates it at the intersection of many of Europe’s traditions.
Yet if there is one country in which the town’s relaxed approach to
religion feels in reality distinctly odd, it is France. Elsewhere in the
country, French town halls hang lights that wish their citizens a
secular joyeuses fêtes, or happy holidays. No French state school isallowed to hold a nativity play or carol service, just as no French
town hall can display a nativity scene. When the far-right mayor of
Béziers, Robert Ménard, installed a crèchein his town hall, it was
ruled illegal and he was ordered to take it down. This weekend,
after a nativity performance outside a church in Toulouse was dis-
rupted, the archbishop deplored the fact that “a simple reminder
of the birth of Jesus...is no longer respected in our country.”
France’s strict form of secularism, known as laïcité, was en-
shrined in law in 1905 after a long struggle with the Catholic
church. Today 54% of the French say they are Catholic. This doc-
trine protects their private right to religious expression. But it also
keeps religion separate from public life. It was these principles
that led France to ban the Muslim headscarf from state schools, as
well as the crucifix and other “conspicuous” religious signs.
Strasbourg, by contrast, like the surrounding Alsace region, en-
joys a derogation under the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801, which
survives to this day. Four faiths—the Catholic, Lutheran and Re-
formed churches and Judaism—are established religions in the re-
gion. Public schools teach religious studies. Religious ministers
are paid by the state. The town hall contributed to the financing of
the city’s grand mosque. The French president even officially ap-
points the archbishop of Strasbourg.
For those in the rest of France brought up on laïclaw, Stras-
bourg’s relaxed approach to religion, like its town hall’s involve-
ment in Christmas, is startling. For France is periodically con-
sumed by a divisive row of one sort or another about religious
expression. If it is not over a municipal nativity scene then it is
about an attempt to ban a parent from accompanying a class trip
while wearing the Muslim veil. The line between the secular and
the sacred in France is a constant source of contest and conflict.
It does not automatically follow, of course, that Strasbourg is
spared religious trouble. On the contrary, the terrorist responsible
for the attack in December 2018, Chérif Chekatt, was Strasbourg-
born. A local network actively recruited jihadists to head to Syria to
fight for Islamic State. The region has rooted extreme-right and
neo-Nazi fringe groups, and periodically suffers anti-Semitic acts.
Officials are particularly concerned about overseas Turkish influ-
ence in the town. “There are many hidden tensions in Strasbourg,”
says Hakim El Karoui, author of a report on French Islam for the In-
stitut Montaigne, a think-tank. He argues that part of the problem
is precisely that Islam, unlike other faiths, does not enjoy the same
status as the (locally established) religions.O come, o come, Emmanuel
Yet the tie between Strasbourg’s town hall and its religious au-
thorities points to a less abrasive link between the political and the
spiritual. Officials and clerics talk often, and know one another. To
mark Ramadan, the town hall hosted an iftar dinner on its pre-
mises—unthinkable elsewhere. Christophe Castaner, the interior
minister, who attended another iftardinner, called such events
“an inspiration for the whole of France”.
Elsewhere in the country, a nativity scene built by a far-right
mayor constitutes provocative identity politics. Strasbourg’s ver-
sion, by contrast, is regarded as “normal and natural”, says Murat
Ercan, a leader of Turkish origin at the regional Muslim council.
“We shouldn’t be naive, there are real difficulties,” says Nicolas
Matt, in charge at the town hall of the link with religious leaders.
“But we believe in celebrating difference. The fact that we talk to
each other means that we know how to talk about religion, and
that gives us a common language.” Joyeux Noël. 7Charlemagne The spirit of Noël
France’s complicated relationship with Christmas