Nicolas Sarkozy on a Healthy Laicism in a Speech at the Lateran Church of Saint John in Rome

It’s for this reason that I profoundly wish for the emergence of a healthy laïcité, meaning a laïcité that, while protecting freedom of thought, the freedom to believe or not, does not consider religions a danger but rather something positive. It’s not a matter of modifying the great balances of the law of 1905. The French don’t want that, and the religions aren’t asking for it. It’s a matter, rather, of seeking dialogue with the great religions of France, and of having as a guiding principle the goal of making the daily life of our great spiritual currents easier rather than more complicated.