In the basement of the Collège des Bernardins, in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, Jean-Luc Mélenchon listens to a craftsman describe to him the thousands of operations necessary for his job as a statue restorer, another talk to him about stained glass, others about the stone size.
Surrounded by a few relatives, in a small committee, he went Saturday morning to an operation to present the trades related to the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral.
An event organized on the occasion of the European Day of Crafts.
Less than 10 days from the first round and on the eve of a big meeting, Sunday in Toulouse, the candidate of the Insoumis offered himself this parenthesis, an opportunity for some philosophical or religious digressions.
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Presidential 2022: "To miss the religious fact is to understand nothing", affirms Mélenchon at the college of Bernardins
Crafts that amaze
"
I love all this, it upsets me, I feel like I've known this gentleman forever
," he admitted to a dinandier, copper craftsman.
“
These crafts have a very high level of technique
, continued the candidate who was Minister Delegate for Vocational Education under Lionel Jospin.
They are a strong illustration that all professions are practical sciences.
And that's why those who talk about the intelligence of the hand don't have much in the brain because the hand only works with the brain.
Nothing this man does can come from anything other than knowledge.
Everything is at work: the eye, the gaze, the hand, the sensations... Everything brings you back to a knowledge of materials and that amazes
".
Especially since the presidential candidate, visibly passionate, is himself "
totally awkward
".
Religion is not treated "with mockery"
Faced with a renowned stonemason, Pierre Muller, found twenty after having met him in another restoration site, in the Gers, Jean-Luc Mélenchon made the link between these crafts and the religious faith that they express to Notre-Dame.
"
It's a subject that is so deeply human that to miss it is not to understand anything
," he said, stressing that it could not be settled "
with insults or mockery
" like him .
- even "was
able to do it at 18...
" "
We're never proud of our nonsense, it didn't last that long since I had just
“, added Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in reference to his childhood marked by a Catholic education transmitted by his mother.
He was an altar boy for two years.
“
The break was intellectual, philosophical, not sentimental
and people feel it right away.
During an interview with the Jesuits, they brought me a book by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
(Jesuit theologian, editor's note)
, they knew who they were talking to!
He was the first author I read before moving on to the great revolution...
"
Defender of an "open" secularism
Asked whether he was anticlerical, like many of his political family, he qualified.
“
In France yes, we are all anticlerical.
We are against the power of the clericals, the power of the church... Me, I distinguish between the church and the faith, which are two different things.
The clergy is the institution.
There is also faith, which is an entry into contact with the world through a singular channel
”.
A sensitive subject than that of religious faith when he is accused by many, including on the left, of spawning with an Islam too far from secularism.
He defends open secularism.
Read also Presidential 2022: Jean-Luc Mélenchon struggles to stop the Le Pen dynamic
Since his first presidential campaign in 2012, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has never failed to reach out to Christians, on one occasion or another, explicitly or not, nor, moreover, to underline his passion for architecture, associated with a former membership in Freemasonry, inherited from her father.
But these remarks are not only related to the possible and immediate electoral interests of the campaigns.
In 2020, he had thus greeted the encyclical Fratelli Tutti of Pope Francis.
Saturday before the head of the Collège des Bernardins, Laurent Landete, and other figures of this place of dialogue between art and faith, Jean-Luc Mélenchon repeated that for his political family, this Pope "the
first ideological transmitter in the world
" not'
In the spring of 2019, Jean-Luc Mélenchon had been one of the political leaders undoubtedly most affected by the fire of Notre-Dame, "
metronome of the French
".
He then underlined the meaning and history of this monument, "
this great body which is there and burns before our eyes
", before a solemn speech in the National Assembly.