Sarkozy ignites row over religion and Holocaust study

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) - President Nicolas Sarkozy has triggered a row over religion by saying faith has a place in the public sphere and schoolchildren should study the 11,000 French Jewish child victims of the Holocaust.

Sarkozy has angered secularists with repeated praise for faith and references to France's Christian roots, and he told a French Jewish organisation that the violence and wars of the 20th century were due to an "absence of God".

Ten-year-old pupils "should know the name and life story of a child who died in the Holocaust", he told the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) on Wednesday.

He attracted criticism on Thursday from two camps -- secularists keen to keep religion out of public discourse and those worried that pupils could be traumatised by studying the Holocaust through child victims with whom they could identify.

"The president should not turn into a kind of preacher, as he is doing now," said left-wing Senator Jean-Luc Melenchon. Centrist deputy Francois Bayrou predicted "a clash between France's values and those of Nicolas Sarkozy".

"I don't think we can impose remembrance," former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said. Having pupils "adopt" a Holocaust victim was "something very heavy to carry around".

Sarkozy's recent speeches to Catholics and Muslims prompted charges he was violating France's separation of church and state. He was the first French president to address the CRIF annual dinner, a role the prime minister normally takes.

Sarkozy says he is a lapsed Catholic. Previous presidents avoided talking about faith even if they were believers themselves.