(Radio France) The French government has created an office of laicité in an effort to better control how state secularism — one of the fundamental values of the French Republic — is taught and transmitted.
The Interministerial Committee replaces the Observatoire de la Laicité, which was criticised for not cracking down hard enough on radical Islam.
“There have been many theoretical debates and controversies for many years. Now it is time to act,” Marlène Schiappa, France’s junior minister in charge of citizenship, told French public radio on Thursday.
She is one of about a dozen ministers in the new committee that will be tasked with coordinating laicité — state secularism, and track the implementation of the so-called separatism law, aimed at cracking down on Islamic extremism, and which is expected to be approved by parliament on 22 July.
