NOTES TO PAGES 516–22cain d’aujourd’hui. L’E ́tat ne saurait rester passif face atoute atteinte ace principe [The task of the
state is to consolidate the common values that establish the social bond in our country. Among
those values, the equality of man and woman does not have a less important place in our law simply
because it is a recent achievement. It is an element of today’s republican pact. The state cannot
remain passive when confronting any attack against this principle]’’ (Laı ̈cite ́et Re ́publique, 35).
- ‘‘La Crise du catholicisme vient de son immobilisme face aux changements culturels’’
(interview with Danie`le Hervieu-Le ́ger),Le Monde, August 7, 2004, 2. - See the fascinating ‘‘Essay on French Singularity’’ in Mona Ozouf ’sWomen’s Words(Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). - Ibid., 272. Commenting on Ozouf ’s book, Elizabeth Badinter agrees that in France, as
opposed to England, Germany, and America, men have changed more easily in a civilized direction
by conceding women’s claims. She not only makes an unsupported claim for French exceptionalism
but also offers a hilarious explanation: the fact that Frenchmen do not fear their women as men do
in other countries, that their relations with Frenchwomen are gentler, more interdependent, more
seductive even, than are the relations of men in other nations with their women, Badinter tells us,
is due to French mothers not being as possessive of their sons as Anglo-Saxon mothers are. (See E.
Badinter, ‘‘L’Exception franc ̧aise,,’’Le De ́bat87 [November-December 1995].) Thus the power of
universality is made dependent on the alleged uniqueness of French mother-son relations! - Ozouf,Women’s Words,273.
- Incidentally, not everyone in favor of gender equality employs a theological language. Thus
a group of feminists have argued vigorously against the new law simply on the grounds that it
penalizes women only and that its effect will be educationally disastrous because it will push young
women who refuse to remove their headscarves out of state schools and into private religious
schools or back into patriarchal family life. They argue against self-styled ‘‘principled feminism’’
and for what they call ‘‘responsible feminism,’’ which takes seriously into account the consequences
of actions in the real world. In other words, they employ fruitfully a method close to casuistry.
See Communique ́de l’associationFemmes Publiques, ‘‘Eˆtre fe ́ministe, ce n’est pas exclure!’’ http://
sysiphe.org/). - Joan Wallach Scott,Only Paradoxes to Offer(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996),
172–73. - The integrity of the Republic was finally achieved through the secularizing efforts of hu-
manist politicians such as Leon Gambetta, Emile Littre ́, and Jules Ferry (all followers of Auguste
Comte’s philosophy) in the latter part of the nineteenth century. See Claude Nicolet,L’Ide ́eRe ́publi-
caine en France (1789–1924)(Paris: Gallimard, 1982), esp. chap. 6. - ‘‘Each form of civilization has its social sacred. We respect that of others, so let them
respect ours. For us it is the pact of citizenship. For others it is divine revelation’’ (Re ́gis Debray,
‘‘Chaque mode`le de civilisation a son sacre ́social,’’Le Figaro, February 14, 2004; see also hisCritique
de la raison politique[Paris, 1981]). - http://www.laicite-republique.org/association/index.htm.
- Henri Pena-Ruiz, ‘‘Laı ̈cite ́et e ́galite ́, leviers d’e ́mancipation,’’Le Monde diplomatique, Feb-
ruary 2004, 9. - The idea that America—like France, the bearer of a revolutionary tradition—has an inter-
national role as a redeeming nation took shape at the turn of the nineteenth century. Liberal Chris-
tians, closely associated with leading politicians and businessmen, argued strongly that it was
America’sChristianduty to spread brotherhood, democracy, and perpetual peace in the world. See
Richard Gamble,The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of
the Messianic Nation(Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2003).
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