STRUNG ACROSS the cobbled street, between half-timbered Alsatian houses, the festive white lights say: “Strasbourg, capital of Christmas“As Christmas approaches, each facade of this city nestled against the border of France with Germany seems to shine. The sweet smell of gingerbread and cinnamon hot wine hangs in the air. In the courtyard of the 18th century Rohan Palace, now a municipal museum, a life-size wooden building creche (crèche) has been installed, with real bleating sheep. The town hall lit up giant angels with trumpets above the narrow street that leads to the cathedral.
Strasbourg at Christmas captures the festive enthusiasm of Europe as well as its diverse heritage. The city combines Catholic tradition with the Protestant. He is also proud of his many cribs, whose roots pre-date the Reformation go back to medieval times, as is the case with its Christmas trees, whose legend says that Martin Luther introduced it in the 16th century. Indeed, Strasbourg would be the cradle of the first decorated tree, in 1605, then adorned with roses, apples, wafers and candies. Closer to Munich than Paris, annexed by Germany in 1871 and 1940, Strasbourg reflects Germanic. Locals call the Christmas market, founded in 1570 and one of the oldest in the world, Christkindelsmärik. With its Provençal clay creche village figures (santons) and the Scandinavian bearded gnomes (tomte), the market also includes the Mediterranean and the Nordic countries.
Nowadays, Christmas time in this city, as elsewhere in Europe, also has a strong secular attraction. Strasbourg in the holiday season actually mixes the commercial and the spiritual, because the sticky plastic ornaments and the flashing figures of Santa Claus compete in attention with the crucifix and the holy child. Each year in December, a huge 2 million visitors of all faiths flock to the city. One of the five people murdered in a terrorist attack near the Christmas market a year ago was a local garage owner of Afghan origin, who visited the market with his family.
Strasbourg’s flawless embrace for Christmas, in other words, places it at the intersection of many European traditions. However, if there is one country in which the city’s laid-back approach to religion seems really strange, it is France. Elsewhere in the country, French town halls hang lights wishing their lay citizens Happy Holidaysor happy holidays. No French state school is authorized to organize a play or a Christmas carols service, just as no French town hall can display a crèche. When the far-right mayor of Béziers, Robert Ménard, installed a creche in his town hall he was found illegal and ordered to remove it. This weekend, after a disturbance of a manger outside a church in Toulouse, the archbishop deplored the fact that “a simple reminder of the birth of Jesus … is no longer respected in our country”.
The strict secularism of France, known secularism, was written into law in 1905 after a long struggle with the Catholic Church. Today, 54% of French people say they are Catholic. This doctrine protects their private right to religious expression. But it also keeps religion separate from public life. These are the principles that have led France to ban the Muslim headscarf in public schools, as well as the crucifix and other “remarkable” religious symbols.
Strasbourg, on the other hand, like the surrounding region of Alsace, benefits from a derogation under the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801, which remains to this day. Four denominations – the Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed churches and Judaism – are religions established in the region. Public schools teach religious studies. Ministers of religion are paid by the state. The town hall contributed to the financing of the great mosque of the city. The French President even officially appoints the Archbishop of Strasbourg.
For those from the rest of France raised secular right, Strasbourg’s relaxed approach to religion, like the involvement of its town hall at Christmas, is surprising. Because France is periodically consumed by a dividing line of one kind or another on religious expression. If it is not a municipal crèche, it is an attempt to prohibit a parent from accompanying a class trip while wearing the Muslim veil. The border between the layman and the sacred in France is a constant source of contestation and conflict.
It does not automatically follow, of course, that Strasbourg is spared from religious unrest. On the contrary, the terrorist responsible for the December 2018 attack, Chérif Chekatt, was born in Strasbourg. A local network has actively recruited jihadists to travel to Syria and fight for the Islamic State. The region has entrenched marginal groups of the far right and neo-Nazis and is regularly subjected to anti-Semitic acts. The authorities are particularly concerned about the Turkish influence abroad in the city. “There are many hidden tensions in Strasbourg,” says Hakim El Karoui, author of a report on French Islam for the Institut Montaigne, a think-tank. He argues that part of the problem is precisely that Islam, unlike other faiths, does not have the same status as religions (locally established).
O come, o come, Emmanuel
However, the link between the Strasbourg town hall and its religious authorities indicates a less abrasive link between the political and the spiritual. Civil servants and religious often speak and know each other. To mark Ramadan, the town hall organized a iftar dinner at home, unthinkable elsewhere. Christophe Castaner, the Minister of the Interior, who attended another iftar dinner, called such events “an inspiration for all of France”.
Elsewhere in the country, a crèche built by a far-right mayor constitutes a provocative identity policy. The Strasbourg version, on the other hand, is considered “normal and natural”, explains Murat Ercan, a chief of Turkish origin at the Muslim regional council. “You must not be naive, there are real difficulties”, explains Nicolas Matt, head of the town hall for liaison with religious leaders. “But we believe in celebrating difference. The fact that we speak to each other means that we know how to speak about religion, and that gives us a common language. ” Merry Christmas. ■
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the title “The Christmas Spirit”