En France, everything is often a question of semantics. And if the text initially called “law against separatism” has finally changed title, it is anything but trivial. The project presented this Wednesday in the Council of Ministers and finally baptized “law to consolidate the principles of the republic” remains certainly ambitious. It is even presented by the Elysee as one of the most important of the quinquennium. But it is an understatement to say that its writing was weighed with a trebuchet. No question of stigmatizing a religion. Moreover, the word “Islamism” does not appear once. But no question either of giving in to laxity in the face of fundamentalism. It is once again the illustration of the founding principle of macronism: a policy that claims to walk “at the same time” on two legs.
