French Presidential Contender Marine Le Pen Just days after the far-right French presidential candidate Marine le Pen said the Church “interferes in everything except what it should really be concerned with”, France’s bishops have issued reflections on the presidential election.
The bishops’ reflections were published within hours of the announcement that Emmanuel Macron, founder of the centre-left En Marche! Movement and Mrs Le Pen, until Monday leader of the National Front, won the elections first round. The two will face off on May 7.
Continuing the practice they followed throughout the campaign, the bishops refrained from naming their favoured candidate, instead providing Catholics with “elements for discernment”.
Their statement, which was signed by Msgr Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, the general secretary of the French bishops’ conference and the bishops’ spokesman, said society must rely on “the search for common good” and “efficient solidarities”.
Calling for migrants to be welcomed and for European peoples to hold fast to the European project, the bishops warned against the risk of giving in to fatalism and not fighting for the future.
“The state must integrate solidarity in … society and concretely apply its preoccupation for the poor, the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed. To neglect the most fragile is to divide society”, it said, emphasising the need to manage the tension between a “no-control liberalism” and the preservation of “social protection mechanisms”.
The first round of voting, which took place on Saturday, April 23, saw Mr Macron getting 24% of the vote, while Mrs Le Pen took 21%. Defeated candidates François Fillon, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and Benoît Hamon got 20%, 19% and 6% of the vote respectively. Following the vote, Mr Hamon, of the long-established and traditionally influential Socialist Party, called on French voters to support Mr Macron against Mrs Le Pen, saying “There is a clear distinction to be made between a political adversary and an enemy of the Republic.”
Mrs Le Pen’s campaign has entailed promises to restrict immigration and clamp down on migrants, as well as to ban conspicuous religious symbols in public places and to try to renegotiate France’s membership in the European Union.
Ahead of last weekend’s vote she criticised the French bishops for giving political advice. “I don’t get involved with what the Pope should say to his followers,” she said, continuing, “I don’t think religions should tell the French people how to vote.