To my shame, it was the first time in my life I went to see the remembrance day ceremonies. It has never been a habit when I grew up, but I wanted to be there and take the children with me. It was also an opportunity to give Esther a break.
It was interesting to be there. There were a lot of people, 100 maybe, or a bit less. French being a secular state, there were no mention of God, or any reference to religion (but there had been a mass prior to the ceremony). Yet, the ceremony itself seemed very religious. People were silent, listening to the different interventions. We were all facing the war memorial (there is one in every French village). We sang la Marseillaise (an hymn to the French nation really).
Someone read an adress that president Sarkozy had written. One sentence struck me:
La pérennité du culte qui est rendu quotidiennement sur la place de l’Étoile au souvenir du Soldat inconnu, incarnation même du sacrifice du combattant, permet d’établir une filiation directe entre les différentes générations du feu.
I won’t translate it, but what struck me was the use of the French word “culte”. It would be translated as worship in English. So in essence, the president was saying that we daily celebrate “un culte” (in essence: a service of worship), on the tomb of the unknown soldier under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. French society is not a religionless society. Its main religion is the state, the institutions of the Republic. It worships reason. It worships France (whatever they mean by it).