French President Emmanuel Macron has announced further funding to support Christian schools in the Middle East and renewed a pledge to protect heritage sites.
With just three months to go until the elections, Macron’s gesture to “defend education in conflict zones” has not gone unnoticed by his political rivals on the right, keen to promote the notion of protecting Western values.
"Supporting Christians of the Orient is a secular engagement by France, it’s a historic mission," Macron told 150 guests gathered at the Elysée Palace on Tuesday.
"It is a response to the necessity of never abandoning the battle for culture, education and dialogue in this troubled region," he went on, adding "this mission must never divide us, rather bring us together."
Based in the Middle East since the beginning of Christianity, Christians in the region have seen their population steadily decline from 20 percent before World War One to just 4 percent today, representing around 15 million people, according to the Vatican.
Macron announced that the French State would co-fund, with the organisation l'Oeuvre d'Orient, to double the current funding for schools, bringing the total to 4 million euros.
First released in January 2020, the funds have already helped 174 schools, 129 in Lebanon, 16 in Egypt, 7 in Israel, 13 in the Palestinian territories and three in Jordan throughout 2021.
Macron also took the opportunity to award the Legion of Honor award to Monsignor Pascal Gollnisch, director of the L'Oeuvre d'Orient since 2010.
"Keeping schools open today is a miracle,” Sister Mariam An-Nour, director of the Saint Joseph of Beirut school told French news agency AFP, referring to the enormous challenges brought about by the economic and political crisis in Lebanon.
Macron also announced that France would renew its pledge of 30 million dollars for the International Alliance for the protection of heritage in conflict areas (Aliph), set up in 2017 in partnership with the United Arab Emirates.
This initiative supports 150 cultural sites that have been damaged or remain under threat by conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and by the explosion in the port of Beirut in 2020.
The 'religion' of politics
The desire to show public support for Christians has been brought into the limelight by several French politicians on the right, notablly Valérie Pécresse, leader of Les Républicains party (LR), who said during a visit to Armenia that "the question of Christians in the Middle East is at the heart of our policies".
On the far-right, Eric Zemmour, known for his hardline rhetoric on Islam and immigrants said it was necessary to "defend" Western civilisation and that "the Christian world must never refuse to go to war if it came under attack."
"I would not want for us to face the same fate as Christians in the Orient," Jordan Bardella, from the far-right National Rally said, referring to the persecution and atrocities against Christians and other minorities by the Islamic State jihadist faction in the region.
Byzance at the Louvre
In a separate development during the same ceremony at the Elysée, the new director of the Louvre Museum, Laurence des Cars announced the creation of a special wing dedicated to arts of the Byzance period and Christianity in the Middle East.
Expected to open in 2025, it would regroup some 12,000 works "among the most remarkable in the world," des Cars said.
