The boundaries of acceptable behaviour are not fixed

The experience of a French former minister who attacked Muslims shows that even France's national conversation is changing, writes Colin Randall

Women wearing niqabs walk in Marseille. France has banned the full face veil, despite officials admitting they have no idea of the number of women who wear it. (REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier)

France is proud of its long relationship with philosophy. La Philo is always the first subject French pupils sit in their Baccalaureat examinations. In the 18th century, French intellectuals were at the heart of the Age of Enlightenment.

From the medieval scholar Peter Abelard to Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Jean-Paul Sartre and even such contemporary figures as Bernard-Henri Levy, there has never been a shortage of philosophers.

But those who embraced the enlightenment movement for its belief in virtue, reason, tolerance and progress must be spinning in their graves at the ugliness of a debate that has lately pre-occupied France.

Nadine Morano is a former government minister from the centre-right Les Republicans, led by the ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, and a European MP with French presidential ambitions. Late in September she stirred fierce, unedifying controversy by stating on television: “France is a Judeo-Christian country, of white race.”

The Oxford English Dictionary’s online version offers one definition of philosophy as “a theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour”. Some depressing conclusions may be drawn about Mrs Morano’s guiding principles.

Her words were a cruel affront to millions of people with black, brown, olive and yellow skins who were born in France or hold French nationality.

It matters not that she seeks cover behind the shield of national respect for the country’s most revered political leader of the past century, Gen Charles de Gaulle. It is true he once said roughly the same thing.

But not all thoughts expressed in an entirely different age and context – the remark dates from 1959 – are acceptable or applicable now.

In 2015, there is an overwhelming need for people of different ethnic and cultural origins, but inhabiting the same land, to get along. Mrs Morano has a track record of claiming to be quoted out of context, as after her questionable message urging poor young French Muslims to "love France when they live here, find work and not speak in slang … [and not to wear] their caps back to front".

In or out of context, such views now define her. They are not so worrying on the lips of leaders of the far-right, anti-immigration Front National (FN) of Marine Le Pen. Mercifully, though this may change, the FN has yet to experience power beyond a few town halls. Uttered by a well-known mainstream politician, they threaten social harmony.

The veteran actor Alain Delon speeds to Mrs Morano’s defence, praising her for declaring, in effect: “Blow the lot of you. I say what I think and will go on doing so.”

But then Delon counts among his pals Miss Le Pen’s father, Jean Marie, whose outlook is so extreme that even his daughter had him turfed out of the party he created.

Like many countries, France has strict laws limiting free expression. It is not permissible to incite racial hatred, for example, or deny that Nazi war crimes happened.

Mrs Morano’s own party was sufficiently appalled at her comment to drop her from its list of candidates for regional elections. Not even Marine Le Pen – whom she credited with “a lot of talent” in one unguarded moment – offers a haven, initially defending her but, ever keen to reinvent her party as reasonable, later deploring the possible offence to French citizens in overseas territories.

But the most dignified and incisive response has come from Mr Sarkozy’s wife, the Italian-born singer and former model Carla Bruni.

She sent a text message telling Mrs Morano: “My niece [the adopted Senegalese daughter of Bruni’s sister] is black. She is my charming niece and she is French.”

Colin Randall is a former executive editor of The National