POPULATION
65,630,692 (July 2012 est.), note: the above figure is for metropolitan France and five overseas regions; the metropolitan France population is 62,814,233
GDP PER CAPITA
$35,600 (2011 est.)
RELIGIONS
Roman Catholic 83%-88%, Protestant 2%, Jewish 1%, Muslim 5%-10%, unaffiliated 4% overseas departments: Roman Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, pagan
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France
French religious policy is based on the concept of laïcité, a strict separation of church and state under which public life is considered completely secular. France was historically regarded as the “eldest daughter” of the Roman Catholic Church. The French Revolution (1789) saw a radical shift in the status of the Church with the launch of a brutal de-Christianization campaign. After the back and forth of Catholic royal and secular republican governments over the 19th century, laïcité was established under the Third Republic and codified with the 1905 Law on the Separation of Church and State. The constitution of the Fifth Republic (1958) guarantees freedom of religion. Today, most French citizens still identify as Catholics, although church attendance is very low. Through immigration, mainly from North Africa, Muslims now comprise about 10% of the French population. French Muslims have faced problems balancing their religious obligations with laïcité; a 2004 law on conspicuous religious symbols prohibits students and teachers from wearing Muslim headscarves in public schools.
ESSAYS ON FRANCE
Religion and Politics until the French Revolution
The French government’s longtime historical association with the Roman Catholic Church began in earnest when Charlemagne (768-814) became the first emperor to receive a papal coronation in 800. Through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the Catholic Church controlled civil records and held a monopoly over hospitals and primary and secondary education. The Church was the largest landowner in the country, and was financed through a crop tax. Nobles filled the higher ranks of the French Catholic Church, creating strong government-Church links. The strongly pro-Catholic government of the Ancien Régime persecuted the Huguenots – French Protestants – during the Protestant Reformation, and the French Wars of Religion raged for the better part of the sixteenth century. King Henri IV granted amnesty to the Huguenots in the 1598 Edict of Nantes, which opened a path for secularism and tolerance. When Louis XIV revoked the Edict in 1685, persecution resumed, large numbers of French Protestants emigrated, and Catholicism regained its status as France’s exclusive official religion. The onset of the French Revolution in 1789 saw a radical shift in power away from the Catholic Church as Church property was confiscated and the crop tax and special clergy privileges were eliminated. With the 1790 Civil Constitution of the Clergy, priests became employees of the state and the Church became a subordinate arm of the secular French government. Traditional Christian holidays were abolished and many priests were persecuted and killed during the course of the revolution.
The Third Republic and the 1905 Law of Laïcité
Napoleon Bonaparte (1799-1814, 1815) negotiated a reconciliation with the Catholic Church in the Concordat of 1801, which named the Roman Catholic Church as the established, although unofficial, French church while still ensuring religious freedom. Struggles between Royalists and Republicans characterized much of the nineteenth century, the former promoting a closer Church-State relationship and the latter a further break from tradition. The May 1877 Crisis under the Third Republic signaled the final defeat of the Royalists, and the establishment of a system of national secular education in 1882 marked an important landmark in the transition to French secularism. The government of France officially ended relations with the Holy See in the early twentieth century and enacted the 1905 Law on the Separation of Church and State, which fully established the principle of laïcité and the strict religious neutrality of the state, along with freedom of religious exercise. It prohibited the public funding of religions, outlawed the display of religious symbols on public buildings, and made all religious buildings built before 1905 property of the French government. As the twentieth century advanced, laïcité became increasingly entrenched in the fabric of French political culture, even as most French continued to identify as Catholic. Relations with the Vatican were reinstated in 1921 after the approval of the Briand-Ceretti Agreement, which established the right of the government to participate in the selection of Bishops. France’s Jewish population was persecuted under German occupation and the Vichy Regime (1941-1944), and about 75,000 French Jews perished in the Holocaust.
Secular National Identity and the Growth of Islam
In the decades following World War II, France's colonial empire broke apart as its colonies in Southeast Asia and North Africa secured their independence. Growth in emigration from those areas, particularly North Africa, resulted in a sharp increase in the Muslim population in France. The current Fifth Republic, a semi-presidential system, replaced the parliamentary system of the Fourth Republic (1946-1958) in 1958 after the latter had been weakened by the Algerian War for Independence (1954-1962). As Islam became more prominent in France, cultural and religious clashes arose between the Muslim population and an increasingly secular society that repudiated religious claims in public matters, echoing earlier quarrels over the place of the Catholic Church in French society and government. In 2004, the French government banned conspicuous religious symbols, such as large Christian crosses, Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans, and Muslim hijabs, in French schools, arguing that outward public displays of religion were contrary to French values. French politicians generally do not discuss religious beliefs or use religious arguments in debates. President Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-12) challenged aspects of the 1905 Law on the Separation of Church and State by advocating subsidies for Muslim prayer rooms as a way to better integrate Muslims into French society and ease tensions between France’s Muslim population and the country’s tradition of laïcité.
Contemporary Affairs
The entrenchment of secularism as a central principle of the modern French state has led to political and social discrimination against France’s religious communities, and its sizable Muslim minority in particular. In February 2004, the French National Assembly voted in an overwhelming majority to ban students attending public schools from wearing ''ostensibly'' religious signs, including Islamic head scarves, large Christian crosses and Jewish skullcaps, and in July 2010 France’s National Assembly approved a complete ban on wearing a face-veil (niqab) in all public spaces in a near unanimous vote. Famous French politician Nicolas Sarkozy, who served as President of France from May 2007-May 2012, insisted that the ban was not intended to persecute Muslims but rather to protect the rights of women and preserve French national values. According to official estimates, only two-thousand French women wear the face-veil and French government officials have argued that the ban will continue to discourage fundamentalism from taking root in the country. Opinion polls suggest that nearly eighty percent of French citizens support the veil ban, and as of September 2012, approximately 425 Muslim women had been fined up to $180 for wearing the forbidden veil since the law was passed. Several prominent Muslim leaders have voiced their support for the veil ban, including Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, while other Muslims leaders, like Mohammed Moussaoui, the leader of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) have opposed the ban due to its singling out of Muslim women. In March 2012, four Muslim soldiers serving in the French military and three Jewish school children and a Jewish teacher were tragically killed in two separate terrorist attacks carried out by extremist Mohammed Merah. The French government voiced concern about extremism in the country, and in the aftermath of the terrorist attack, banned a string of international Muslim clerics from entering France for an April 2012 conference of a fundamentalist Islamic group.
Religious Freedom in France
Though France is a historic center of Catholicism, in the modern age the French have enforced an assertive form of secularism, based on the principle of laïcité. The French Constitution guarantees religious freedoms but is otherwise silent on matters of religion. The legal framework for laïcité is provided by the 1905 Law on the Separation of Church and State, which ended Catholicism’s privileged status in politics and society. Since the decolonization of Africa, France has become home to a sizable Muslim minority that constitutes about 10 percent of the population. The recent popularity of xenophobic and ultra-nationalist political movements like the National Front has led to increased religious and ethnic tension. The 2004 law banning Muslim headscarves – and other religious garb like Jewish yarmulkes and large Christian cross necklaces – in public schools has been criticized by the United Nations, the European Human Rights Commission as well as Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh organizations as a violation of religious freedom. The French Government also actively prohibits or limits the activities of religious groups it considers cults, such as Scientology and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. From the French government’s point of view, these regulations on religious life are designed to guarantee a vibrant, democratic public sphere in which all can participate on equal terms.
Religion in the French Constitution
The French constitution, adopted in 1958 and typically referred to as the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, is brief in its handling of the topic of religion. The sole mention of religion in the French constitution is found in Article 1, which declares France a secular state, proclaims the state’s respect for all beliefs, and guarantees the equality of all citizens regardless of religion. In practice, the government generally respects religious freedom but some concerns remain, particularly regarding religious education and public displays of faith. For example, controversial legislation passed in 2004 bans students and public employees of any kind from wearing conspicuous religious symbols, including the Muslim headscarf, Jewish skullcap, Sikh turban, and large Christian crosses in public domains, stirring much debate in French society.
Article 1: Secularism and Non-discrimination
France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race, or religion. It shall respect all beliefs. It shall be organized on a decentralized basis.
