Man and God in France

Timothy Lehmann reviews La Republique, les religions, l'esperance by Nicolas Sarkozy.

... The debate over religion in Europe is whether it was a noxious (and now discredited) fairy tale that caused needless bloodshed and suffering in the Middle Ages, or an important part of society, the absence of which caused needless bloodshed and suffering in the century just past. Clearly, both alternatives in their extremes sought to establish unnatural utopias on earth. The attempt to satisfy religious longings was horrifyingly damaging to decent political and social life in the Middle Ages. But the attempted extirpation by force of the unsatisfied religious longing from Nazi Germany and Communist Russia was equally, if not more horrifyingly, damaging to Europe. ...

Policy Review, April 2005
(via Arts & Letters Daily)