Bruno Le Maire Discusses Current Events in Paris

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: What — I mean, how is Paris faring in the wake of this anniversary Plus, of course, we know that, in the last month, there have been two other terrible terrorist attacks in France.

BRUNO LE MAIRE, FRENCH FINANCE MINISTER: I think that we must all be aware, in European countries, that we are still under attack, and that we are threatened by radical Islam. This is a very sad anniversary for the French people. This is also a very sad anniversary for all European countries. We should all bear in mind that we need to be tough vis-a-vis radical Islam. We have to fight radical Islam. We have to stand together. And I hope that, with the election of President Biden, there will be a new step in the cooperation between the United States, France, and the European countries in that fight against the terrorism and against radical Islam. Everybody should be aware that this is not only a fight against an enemy. It is also a cultural challenge for all of us. We have to defend our values, our European values that are at the core of the French society and at the core of the European society.

AMANPOUR: Minister, I want to ask you about that. Maybe it’s an opportunity to explain to the Anglo-Saxon world, maybe America and elsewhere. You have a very specific secularist term called laicite where you are absolutely very, very committed to the secularization and total separation of church and state of any religion. Some people don’t quite understand what you mean, because the president, of course, when he was mourning the death and the beheadings of citizens of France, also stood up for the right of, like, the teachers and journalists and other intellectuals to put maybe those cartoons other such things into the public domain.

LE MAIRE: I think that everybody has to understand that the so-called laicite is at the heart of the French society, at the heart of the French construction, and at the heart of the French nation. What does it mean, laicite. Laicite means a clear separation between the secular issues and the religious issues. We don’t want the religious issues to play at the first stage the role that secular issues and secular matters have to play. And we want to stick to that clear distinction between religion and politics.