French Protestants begin three-year commemoration of edict of Nantes

There were no slick advertising campaigns, no live television broadcasts, no souvenir T-shirts or official CDs by famous musicians. "We're not competing with the (Catholic) `World Youth Days'," Pastor Jean Tartier, the President of the Protestant Federation of France, says mischievously, comparing the Protestants' modest gettogether last Sunday with the grand Papal fete staged by the Catholic Church two weeks earlier.

The "Assembly of the Museum of the Wilderness", as the Protestant ceremony is known, is held every September under the oak trees of the Mas Soubeyran in the Cevennes wilderness, where Huguenots took refuge from the dragoons of Louis XIV in the 17th century. Up to 20,000 French Protestants from the Reformed Church - the descendants of the Huguenots who compose more than half of France's tiny Protestant minority - attend the morning sermon, midday picnic and afternoon history lessons.

So on September 7th, the subdued, middle-aged assembly began a three-year commemoration of the April 13th, 1598, Edict of Nantes with lectures on the wars and decrees which preceded the 1598 text. The edict was promulgated by Henri IV, who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism to take the throne with the cynical remark that "Paris is well worth a Mass". It ended 36 years of bloodshed and gave France 87 years of peace, until it was revoked by Louis XIV.

Next February, the Protestant Federation will launch a series of more public celebrations. "For the first time in French history, the Edict of Nantes allowed Protestants to live their faith fully, but still be loyal subjects of the king," Pastor Tartier says. "It was an enormous step forward; the concept of tolerance was a revolutionary idea which didn't exist before. Until then in Europe, all the subjects of a king had to share his religion."

Relations between French Catholics and Protestants were strained when Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass for more than one million people on August 24th - the 425th anniversary of the St Bartholomew's day massacre of thousands of Protestants by Catholics. The Pope mentioned the killings in a baptismal vigil on the eve of the Mass, but he disappointed many Protestants. "I was glad that he recognised that his church had acted against the Gospel," Pastor Tartier says. "But I wasn't completely satisfied . . . he didn't say, `I as Pope ask forgiveness of the Protestants of France'."

Pastor Tartier says he is "torn apart" by events in Northern Ireland. "I would like to make our Protestant brothers understand that they are in error. When I try to talk to them, they say `you can't understand what it is like to be us'. Some of them realise how scandalous it is - you have the impression of another age. I don't know how we can appeal to them to change; if each side remains locked in its own idiosyncracies, there is no way out. I would like to tell them that religion must create peace not division, that diversity is a good thing. The more I frequent people of other religions, the better I know myself as a Protestant."

But Pastor Tartier also understands the reluctance of Northern Ireland Protestants to become a minority. "I have to admit that it was difficult for many centuries to be a minority in France," he says. Today in France, Protestants wield an influence that far surpasses their numbers. Although they represent less than 2 per cent of the population of 58 million and are outnumbered by Jews and Muslims, the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, is a Protestant. So is the government spokeswoman and minister of culture, Mrs Catherine Trautmann.

Protestants have played a leading role in high fashion through the designer, Hubert de Givenchy, and Pierre Berge, the chairman of Yves Saint Laurent.

A majority of French Protestants vote Left, a legacy of their participation in the French Revolution and the push for secularism which culminated in the 1905 law on separation of church and state. More recently, Protestants have campaigned for the rights of immigrants and supported Muslims' demand for their own theological university.

Although a dwindling number practise their religion, and more than half marry outside their faith, "there is a Protestant mentality, which has nothing to do with religion", Pastor Tartier says. "Our values have become secularised: social justice, honesty, a certain seriousness of purpose." Although he is non-practising, is married to a Catholic and refuses to discuss his religion, Mr Jospin's politics are "marked by the seal of Calvinism", the French weekly Evenement du Jeudi says. Mr Jospin's credo of "perseverance, ethics and consultation" would have pleased Calvin and Luther. By making him their Prime Minister last June, the French "were in reality voting for Protestant values", the magazine concluded.