Sarkozy: the debate over national identity "is a noble debate"

What's there in the recipe for the sauce Sarkozy national identity? The school, the Louvre, the French Academy, the steeple of the village or the price of book. The President delivered Thursday "the substance of (his) mind" on the issue in a speech in La-Chapelle-en-Vercors, in the Drome, former riding of his Minister of Immigration and National Identity Eric Besson.

While everyone is called to give its opinion on the Internet and prefects and parliamentarians are responsible for organizing discussion meetings to discuss national identity, the head of state wanted to cut short the criticism: "It is a debate noble. Those who do not want this debate is that they are afraid. "And to say his" punishment "for" those who think that French national identity is so weak that it is not even the mention.

Throughout his speech, Sarkozy has repeated: France is diverse, but it is one. But different. But. "Behind the differences, oppositions, contradictions, there is the profound unity of our culture. "Our identity is both singular and plural. (...) It is in thought, language, lifestyle, landscape. "Christendom, too:" There is not a free thinker who feels within himself the heir to Christianity , which has left so many traces. "

Posing as the defender of secularism, "respect for all faiths," the Head of State has once again warned against communalism: "It is French because we do not recognize in a race that 'it does not leave locked in origin or religion. "

"No place" in France for the burqa

As he had done at the Congress of Versailles, Sarkozy reiterated his opposition to the burqa: "France is a country where there is no place for the burqa, no room for the enslavement of women . Before réenfourcher of the horse of "merit" and "labor value" to better deliver the dot the i "One can not want all the advantages of the Republic if it does not respect its laws, its values." Citing as an example of benefits unemployment benefits, social security or free university.

"La France," he insisted, is a country where we do not ask anyone to forget its history and culture, but ask those who want to link their fate to hers to take as its history and culture sharing. "Or:" Becoming French is adhering to a form of civilization, to values, morals. "

Finally, at a time when a Prix Goncourt (Marie Ndiaye) is reminded of his "duty of reserve" by an MP (Eric Raoult), the President wanted to tell all his commitment to freedom of expression: "At home Voltaire and Victor Hugo, one can think freely. "