"France does not need a Christian democracy but to be inspired by Christianity"

As Prime Minister, François Bayrou finds himself at the heart of a crisis in the French government. Furthermore, as the founder of the Modem (Modem), he is the historical heir to the center, that is, to Christian democracy. Although there has never been a political party in France bearing the name "Christian"—at least not one located in the center—this political positioning has played an undeniable role in French democracy, from the MRP to the CDS. But Catholic-inspired "centrism" only made sense when positioned between a liberal, Gaullist right and a social-democratic, communist left.

The collapse of all these currents of political thought has not spared Christian democracy. This is clearly observable in Italy, the country where it was born with Don Sturzo. The same is true in Germany with the CDU, whose Christian reference is still truly significant. In light of the upheaval of the democratic and liberal regime in recent decades, the end of Christian democracy is ultimately only one version of the global crisis of politics in Europe and, more broadly, in the West.

Nevertheless, a fundamental question must be asked: can a nation be governed without a conception of politics, whether philosophical or spiritual? There is no point in procrastinating. The answer is no. Political action without philosophical or spiritual resources is doomed to have no overall perspective for the country that political leaders aim to govern. Without this perspective, political action cannot be sustainable.

However, as we see with the current institutional crisis, there is nothing more distressing for a people than not being governed sustainably . The result is civic indifference, not to say depression, or worse still, violence manifesting itself in the streets, a sign of a profound decline in democratic morals. Lacking an incontestable majority, this is exactly the situation in which François Bayrou's government finds itself: there reigns a whiff of the end of the Fourth Republic, further reinforced by political parties that increasingly resemble start-ups that change their names regularly, or which have only the appearance of continuity. This says a lot about the rise of the insignificance of politics and democracy.

In this chaotic and dangerous context, Christianity holds all the cards, not to monopolize the meaning of political life , but to breathe hope into it, that is to say, to give political action a lasting meaning; to redeploy the meaning, not of a vague "collective", but of a common political body animated by a common history, including in its divisions; to redeploy the importance of the person who is not just an individual endowed with rights, to redeploy the meaning of the universal, that is to say of a common humanity coordinated with belonging to a nation (the common home of all those who share its language and culture or who ask nothing better than to be associated with it); to redeploy the meaning of solidarity and even more of fraternity by which a nation can form a "we" and not a simple conglomerate of individuals. ; redeploy to this end an educational policy which ensures the transmission of fundamental knowledge.

A nation is only worthy of the name if it knows how to transmit its history, its culture, its principles and its values ​​to its youth and to those who were not born on its soil; redeploy an international policy that contributes to the influence of our country, not only for its personal glory, but so that the Earth is also our common Home. Finally, having the concrete concern of respecting nature amounts to remembering that humans and nature (Creation) do not exist without each other.

These are all fundamental challenges for which Christianity has intellectual and spiritual resources that should inspire a policy. Should we therefore identify it under the name of "Christian democracy"? I don't think so. We are no longer in the time of Marc Sangnier and Emmanuel Mounier. It is not so much a Christian democracy that France and Europe need. It would only reduce Christianity to a confessional political orientation. On the other hand, the Church is perfectly authorized to offer the civic resources of Christianity. Moreover, all those who do not identify with the Christian faith can identify with the challenges developed, each of them converging towards the guiding idea of ​​the common good. This is what any government needs to be legitimate in the eyes of the sovereign people.