The New Yorker on Secularism in France

The Nov. 22 issue of The New Yorker features a piece by Jane Kramer on France's ban on Muslim headscarves in schools, and on French secularism more generally.  I have not been able to find a link to the article, but an interview with Ms. Kramer about the essay is available here.  It makes (in my view) for painful but instructive reading.  Kramer states:

I was interested in the issue of secularism, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, in what I have come to think of as the American theocratized state. Living in America and looking at France, as I often do, I was struck by the fact that these are the two most significant republics in the West with this total separation between church and state. Several Western countries are in some way tied to an established church and, as a result, are not fully separated constitutionally, in terms of church and state. But France is and America is. Just as the United States was reintroducing religion into the concept of the state, France was busy reaffirming the secularism of the state.

The interviewer then goes on to pick up the theme of America's "apparent tilt toward theocracy."

This is all, of course, so much nonsense.  Whatever one thinks of what might be characterized as a modest increase in religiously-toned discussion in the public square, the notion that the American "state" is "theocratized" is overheated blather.  And, contrary to Ms. Kramer's suggestion, the move in America away from "naked public square" ideas of public discourse does not amount to "reintroducing religion into the concept of the state," any more than France's aggressive moves against all but the most privatized forms and expression of religion can fairly be characterized as merely "reaffirming the secularism of the state."  In a nutshell, Ms. Kramer misses the important -- the crucial, for those of us who value freedom -- and Catholic distinction between "state" and "society."

Rick