André Delelis on Lending the Stade Bollaert to the Jehovah's Witnesses

On the Use of the Stade Bollaert of Lens by the Jehovah’s Witnesses

Exclusive interview with the former mayor of Lens, André Delelis, by Régis Dericquebourg

Source: Régis Dericquebourg, Interview with André Delelis, Blog of Fabrice Desplan [http://sociologiser.hautetfort.com/], published 4.02.2007.

News about religious groups is often polemical. Concerning the Jehovah’s Witnesses, far from sharing their doctrine and vision of the world, I regretted in a previous note the stigmatisation of which they are victims, especially as it prevents thinking about and analysing French religious diversity. I asserted, and I insist again, that they are victims of a vision of the religious in terms of “social pathology” on the part of opponents of religious plurality. Now that the media gaze has turned away from the hiring of the Stade Bollaert by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I give you the interview with André Delelis carried out on 26 August 1998 by Régis Dericquebourg, when the A.D.F.I was already agitating around this question. The interview is preceded by a short presentation by Régis Dericquebourg. I invite you to take note of the logic developed by this socialist who can without fear refer to Guy Mollet, far from the right/left, religious/irreligious straitjackets, in a constructive vision of laïcité in the Republic which completes the debates on the hiring of the Stade Bollaert to the JWs. Note in passing his deep respect for the JWs, his constituents and the opponents of his strategy operating through the ADFI. My thanks to Régis Dericquebourg for this exclusive interview which urges respect for religious difference beyond impassioned shortcuts. Interview with Monsieur André Delelis concerning the loan of the Stade Bollaert (Lens) for the assemblies of Jehovah’s Witnesses, gathered by Régis Dericquebourg (Université Charles De Gaulle-Lille3, Groups, Societies, Religions and Laïcité, CNRS) Monsieur André Delelis has been: mayor of Lens (constantly re-elected), deputy, minister, Senator. He is a likeable man, notes Dericquebourg, open, who displays a “humanism”. He has had a political career remarkable for the number of functions he has obtained and for his political longevity. He has always remained faithful to the socialist party. R. Dericquebourg indicates that “The interview was granted without reticence at a moment when minority religious groups were controversial among the socialists. We thank him for it with all our heart. The interview was recorded and faithfully transcribed. M. Delelis authorised us to divulge it.” From the outset, he declares: A. D: In laïcité, we retain what the ancients, the secularists teach us, and what democratic socialism and humanism have taught me. I have always been tolerant towards all. I am an atheist. My parents raised me so and I have never adopted a religion. I have nevertheless been the mayor open to all religions. I had a mosque put at the disposal of the Muslims. I had the churches renovated, here the communal church by virtue of the law; the commune assumes all the maintenance costs of the building, and the other churches, which were Catholic, were built by the mining companies in former times. And I had them renovated under the credits which served to renovate the mining basin following the end of mining. I have always granted the halls in agreement with the municipality (we meet every week, my deputies and I, and we have always given, without discussion, to all organisations including organisations of a worship character, the premises they wished to have, and free of charge, for we have always considered that our duty as elected officials was to be at the disposal of all without distinction of origin, or of political, trade-union or religious opinion, and that from there, being the elected representatives of all, we had to protect those who wanted to exercise the religion of their choice. Guy Mollet said: “I am an agnostic but I will fight to allow the Catholics, the Protestants and all the others to be able to enter the places of worship”. We have always considered that the associations to which we gave communal halls had to be associations not prohibited, and I have always answered the Association of Madame Charline Delporte (note by R.D.: ADFI of Lille): “Madame, when you have had the Jehovah’s Witnesses prohibited by French law, the Jehovah’s Witnesses will no longer be able to use the Stade Bollaert. As long as this association is not prohibited, it will use the Stade Bollaert as it sees fit, in conditions we shall determine. There is no doubt about that. Have them prohibited, and afterwards we shall bow before the laws of the French Republic. I listened to the arguments of all sides. I received them. The adversaries of the Jehovah’s Witnesses put forward family problems of children who had gone off to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and had thus turned their backs on their family’s feelings. Some had fallen out with their families. Once adult children freely make the choice of their adult life, it is none of my business. That such-and-such a parent did not accept that their child could find himself among the Jehovah’s Witnesses, that the Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves might not vote in elections - well, admit, Madame, that you cannot accuse me of electoralism. That they forbid blood samples and transfusions is their problem, it is not mine. Me, as mayor, I do not have to discuss the choices of my constituents. They do what they want, and as long as what they do is not forbidden by the laws of the Republic, it is not for me to oppose anything whatever.” I gave the same answer to those who came asking me to ban the posters on condoms, asking me to think of the children, or who wanted to ban the showing of pornographic films in the cinemas of Lens etc.… I have always answered: “I do not have to be the taskmaster of the town, to make the round of the billboards and the cinemas. As long as it is not forbidden by law, personally, it is none of my business. It concerns each person’s conscience. Everyone does as he wishes.” In the municipality, I have only one deputy who does not agree with what we do, and yet he is himself a secular socialist. He thinks what he wants, I respect his opinions, but he does not bring the conviction necessary for me to renounce my ideas of tolerance. I have no desire at all to discuss the manner in which the Jehovah’s Witnesses use the Stade Bollaert. I pay homage to the spirit of organisation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, to the very great rigour they apply in the use of our facilities. They return them in a better state than the one provided to them, that is to say everything is clean. Everything is cleaned. Everything is fine. Everything is in place. In addition, they pay a rent freely set in amount and which increases each year. Given the difficulties we have with a certain number of people. I observe moreover that the inhabitants of Lens who oppose the Jehovah’s Witnesses represent some ten people, one of whom was a Front National candidate, and I observe that the others, in my opinion, have a mentality which must lead them to vote F.N. It is their right to oppose the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is their right to go and demonstrate at the gates of the stadium when the Jehovah’s Witnesses are there. I simply asked the Jehovah’s Witnesses to respect the demonstrators, and for certain of their followers not to taunt, from one side of the fence, those who might be on the other side of the fence, to turn their backs on them, that there be no provocation. I do not want this affair to be a battleground between the two sides. The right to assemble exists in our country, the right to demonstrate exists. I do not have to discuss it. I must say that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have always given us satisfaction in the recommendations we made to them. So people say to me, “the Jehovah’s Witnesses are a cult”, and I have always asked what a cult was, for I do not know, myself, what a cult is. Nobody has managed to define for me what it was, and I saw a first deputy X from whom I asked for the parliamentary inquiry report on the cults. I read it. I heard the observations of my first deputy and he was like me. He said: “I learned nothing from the parliamentary inquiry report. They did not manage to define what a cult was.” They did not manage to bring sufficient testimony against the Jehovah’s Witnesses to decide to have them prohibited. After all, parliamentarians have the freedom of the legislative proposal, and the communist deputy-mayor of a town in the Paris region… R. D: Brard? A. D: Yes, who was part of the commission, who appeared to me an extremely objective man, wrote to me saying: “You give your stadium. What are the considerations that led you to give it, because me, I ask myself questions about the Jehovah’s Witnesses and I have not managed to make up my mind on this subject?” I answered the person concerned and he seemed satisfied with the arguments I have set out to you, and he never returned to the charge. I imagine that, like me, he continues to ask himself questions. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are often compared to other cults which I call “the bloody cults”. Those which have crimes to reproach themselves with. I have never found any possible rapprochement, nor any points of comparison. On the other hand, we have here in Lens bodies derived from the Catholic Church. We have a handful of fundamentalists. We have the community La Source. We have people who move away from the Church while still believing in the dogma. I studied their case. I saw them. I questioned them. They invited me. They received me kindly. They explained to me. I have nothing to say except that, if the Catholic Church does not manage to keep its followers in the Church, it is for it to recover them, since they are outside the Church to cultivate their religion. I had the same problems with the Muslims who at one point, in gratitude for having put a mosque at their disposal, invited me to the mosque, and when there was contact between their leaders, the Imam, and the executives of the town hall, it appeared to me very quickly that there was a minority of fundamentalists who demanded that we take off our shoes, who did not want elected women councillors in the delegation visiting them. I said: “Take it or leave it. If you want us to come, we do not take off our shoes, we come with the women councillors. Otherwise, we do not come. We are not coming to your place to adopt your religion, your dogmas and your practices. You receive us as elected officials. We are paying you a visit of friendship because we wish for fraternity between you and those who do not believe as you do. We have our roles as elected officials of the left, secular, republican, socialist, whatever our personal convictions. Our role is to bring the inhabitants closer together and to avoid antagonisms, and we operate likewise with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and with the others. What bothers some people is that the Jehovah’s Witnesses pay us significant sums for the hire of the Stade Bollaert, and one day they published the sums they paid, and immediately we received letters from Lens residents saying that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were paying money to the Racing Club de Lens; How could a club with a lot of money accept the money of the Jehovah’s Witnesses? I answered that it was the reimbursement of services. What bothers people is that the sums go up to two hundred thousand francs (about thirty-five thousand euros), and some told me it was laundered money, ill-gotten money from people who owe millions to the French tax authorities. A few towns got in touch with us because they granted their stadium to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and we compared our opinions and we agreed, except Strasbourg, I believe. That is its affair. If it suffers pressure from people who are not tolerant, that is the municipality’s affair. We, we continue quietly and peacefully, and we give an account to whoever wants one. The Lens population adheres to our point of view, and the inhabitants, ten or so excepted, have never reproached us. Moreover, if they did reproach us, it would change nothing in our position. We are elected for six years, and if people are not happy with what we do, it is for them, by their electoral choices, to say so. Me, I am proud of what I do. I say to my deputy, who is a lycée headmaster, that he does not set a good example: “I am a secularist. You owe it to yourself to teach the lycée pupils tolerance and laïcité. There is no compromise for a public authority in putting its establishments at the disposal of religions. I do not see in what way we would have failed in our mission. These establishments were paid for by the taxes of all the taxpayers, and if the Jehovah’s Witnesses do not vote, they are taxpayers like the others and they have the right to use the common facilities. Any prohibition would be an exclusion, and our mission is to fight against all exclusions whatever they may be. That is what we think. R. D: Did the A.D.F.I intervene? A. D: Yes, on numerous occasions. R. D: And for the exhibition on the deportees? A. D: No, nobody contested that exhibition. I went to it. I greeted them with respect, for I have read publications. I know that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were punished by the Nazis in the same way as the Jews, the Freemasons and the communists, and many others, and personally I respect the sacrifices of the Gypsies, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the other persons. I read the book of Charline Delporte and her followers. Her books only take up the arguments I already knew: complaints from parents of adult children. I have always fought against totalitarianisms. France honours itself in respecting this or that religion when there is nothing to reproach them with. Those of the OTS are criminals, that is not tolerable. R. D: Do you receive letters from the A.D.F.I? A. D: Charline Delporte writes to me every year. Madame Ovigneur came too. I told her: “File complaints”. They came to demonstrate in front of the town hall. The one who shouted loudest was the Front National candidate for the town hall. He was the most virulent. I do not have to obey Madame Delporte. Guy Mollet asked me in former times to lend communal halls to the communists and to the right. He was transparent and unassailable on tolerance. They have a Vichyite temperament. There are very few elected officials who support them. I have known demagogic elected officials who had a field day because the Jehovah’s Witnesses did not vote, but they were few. One day Derosier asked me if I could receive Charline Delporte. One day I saw him. He said to me: “She is pestering me, I had to send her to you”. I said to him: “Me, I do not espouse her theses”. He answered me: “Me neither, you must not follow these people. Careful!” “I said to Charline Delporte: You want the Stade Bollaert (for your meetings), you have it, but a telephone box is enough for you!” Note: The Jehovah’s Witnesses have permitted themselves, according to their conscience, to take part in elections since 1998. M. Delelis was not aware of this element.