A few days before Christmas, 1971, the Protestant Federation of France published a 12,000-word draft statement, Eglise et Pouvoirs, which immediately caused repercussions around the world. The extraordinary, and for the French Protestant leaders startling, controversy over the statement was initiated by the French centrist newspaper Le Monde. On December 19 it printed a full page of extracts from the document under the provocative title “The French Protestant Federation declares: Our society is unacceptable.”

Immediately, all the French dailies and weeklies came out with numerous quotations and analyses, constituting a press reaction greater than any ever caused by a church statement in French history. The foreign press, notably the New York Times and International Herald Tribune, were not far behind. Press, radio and TV reporters brought a sudden and unwonted animation to the offices of the Protestant Federation of France (an old building, the House of French Protestantism, on the Rue de Clichy across from the Casino de Paris, famous music hall of Mistinguett and Maurice Chevalier).