Religion and Secularism in France Today

Philippe Portier, Jean-Paul Willaime, Philippe Portier, Jean-Paul Willaime

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032425788
• eBook ISBN: 9781000593303
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume explores the dynamic life of religion and politics in France.

The separation of church and state and the autonomy of school education from religion are the two fundamental pillars of France as a secular republic. The historical construction of French secularism (laïcité) was particularly marked by the strong opposition between the state and the Catholic church. However, the religious disaffiliation of a significant proportion of the French strengthened state secularism, which gradually became more consensual – despite some persisting tensions in the school context.

Yet, in the last decades, several factors have revived public debate on laicity: the quarrel over 'sects' and new religious movements; controversies over Islam, today the second-largest religion in France; and, more recently, dispute over bioethics. Faced with these challenges, laicity as well as the religious groups involved have been changing.

The authors of this book, ranking amongst the best French experts in the study of religion and secularism, introduce the reader to a living and lived laicity influenced by the social and religious dynamics of contemporary France. They demonstrate that the configurations of French secularism are both more flexible and complex than they appear to be. The volume investigates the extent to which the French idea of secularization has been pushed to be more thorough and radical in its interaction with its other European counterparts.

A key work on French political thought, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of international politics, political philosophy, political sociology, and religion and politics.

1A BRIEF HISTORY OF FRENCH LAÏCITÉ

Jean Baubérot

DOI: 10.4324/9781003178675-2

The French constitution defines France as a ‘Republique laïque’, ‘a lay Republic which respects all beliefs’. The French people generally consider that laïcité is a ‘French exception’. This singularity has recently been reinforced by the passage of a law on 15 March 2004 banning ostentatious symbols in public schools. This law, adopted after the work of a commission called the ‘Stasi Commission’ was fiercely criticized in many countries, including India. I was a member of this commission but didn’t vote for the proposed law. I can, therefore, honestly say that French laïcité cannot be reduced to just the terms of this particular law. The law of separation of the churches and the state, adopted in December 1905, is a much more foundational law. The law of 1905 and sets out the terms of the relationship between religion, the state, and the individual.

Laïcité: a French secularism

At first glance it appears to me that the judicial and political framework of the separation between churches and the state in France is not very different from that in India. Professor Donald Eugene Smith defines India as a secular state. His definition of the secular state encompasses three distinct but interrelated sets of relationships concerning the state, religion, and the individual.

First let us examine the relation between religion and the individual: the secular state guarantees individual and corporate freedom of religion, but there is a limited area in which the secular state can legitimately regulate the practise of religion, broadly in the interests of public health, safety, and morality. Secondly, concerning the relation between the state and the individual: the secular state views the individual as a citizen and not as a member of particular religious group, and its rights and duties are not affected by the individual’s religious beliefs. Thirdly, let us examine the relation between the state and a religion: the secular state isn’t associated with a particular religion, nor can it seek to promote or interfere with a religion. Professor Smith said that three sets of relations can be derived from the Indian constitution. I believe that of the French constitution too. However, there are naturally distinctive political and cultural differences between India and France.

I believe that of the French constitution too. However, there are naturally distinctive political and cultural differences between India and France. It is, therefore, necessary to analyze from a historical perspective the political and cultural construction of French laïcité. My perspective comes from an affirmation of Durkheim. He said: ‘A society is not constituted simply by the mass of individuals who comprise it, (…) but above all by the idea it has of itself’. Conflicts, when they occur, happen ‘not between the ideal and reality, but among different ideals’ (1912/1995, p. 424). From the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries, the conflict that gave to modern and democratic France two opposing ideals: that of a Catholic nation-state and that of the emancipation of the nation-state and its institutions from religion.

The political and religious conflicts

The religious wars of the sixteenth century (1562–1598) between the Catholic majority and the Protestant minority became imprinted on the collective memory of the French people. After almost 40 years of a very brutal and bloody war, King Henry IV of France declared a policy of religious tolerance through the Edict of Nantes (May 1598). He granted Protestants freedom of conscience (including the opening up of all public employment to them) and some elements of religious freedom, while preserving the Catholic character of the kingdom. The Edict effected a cultural break at a time when the unity of faith formed the very foundation of society itself. This Edict could have marked the inauguration of a pluralistic society.

Monarchical power, however, became absolute and religious dissidence began to be considered the equivalent of a political opposition. ‘A faith, a king, a law’ became the order of the day under Louis XIV, abrogated the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and expelled Protestant pastors from France. He also forbade Protestant laymen from leaving, desiring to force them to convert to Catholicism and persecuting those who resisted. Anti-Protestant repression was again unleashed in the eighteenth century. Indeed, if the French Enlightenment was more radical than its English and German counterparts, accusing religion of fanaticism, it was simply because acts of religious fanaticism were actually occurring in France.

Such acts didn’t connote the same meaning as they had earlier. In the sixteenth century, persecution was the other side of an act of faith, more collective than individual. In the eighteenth century, persecution became more extreme because faith was less collective and more individualized. The political-religious system (an absolute monarchy; ecclesiastical and political Gallicanism) was responsible for such a development, but religion in general suffered over an extended period. The anticlerical texts of Voltaire was read more in the nineteenth and, perhaps, twentieth centuries than in the eighteenth.

In the eighteenth century, religion pervaded French society. Communion during the Easter celebrations and confession were imposed upon the people. The Catholic clergy was the first of the three Orders of the kingdom. The existence and pre-eminence of the monarchy was given religious justification on the basis of the theory of the divine right of kings. The king was endowed with politico-religious power, and one of his basic responsibilities was to defend Catholicism, and, gradually, the monarchy established widespread autonomous political and administrative power. A Gallican movement developed the idea of a French Catholic church which was protected and autonomous from the Pope and also partly controlled by the monarchy.

The Revolution of 1789–1799 sheared the privileges of the clergy and confiscated the church’s large land holdings. The Revolutionaries strove towards the emancipation of civil and political society from the influence of the church, particularly in social matters relating to marriage, divorce, and education. The Declaration of Human Rights of 1789 proclaimed the principle of religious freedom. In 1791, the constitution divested the monarchy of its religious features, and this was put into effect a year later. The Republic was established but through the throws of conflict.

The foundation of the Republic was considered to be the first day of a new era (as the birth of Christ had been for the Gregorian calendar). In 1793, the institution of revolutionary cults (Eternal Reason, Saint Liberty, or the more conciliatory Cult of the Supreme Being) violently all revealed religions. The significance of the new forms of religion was represented by ritualized gatherings of the community around common values that were socially fundamental and regarded as sacred. It was a conflictual and, eventually, impossible form of laicization.

The First threshold of laicization

Napoléon Bonaparte inherited a chaotic situation. In 1801 he signed a Concordat with the Pope: the Roman Catholic church was proclaimed the religion of the great majority of the French people’, but without the status of a state religion. The following year, the plurality of religions became official: the Lutheran and Reformed churches, and, later, Judaism were recognized. In 1804 the Civil Code made no reference to religion. It is possible to evaluate the situation, by using the abstract notion of the first threshold of laicization (constructed on the basis of Weber’s ideal type, a kind of identikit picture). This theory has three distinctive characteristics:

1. Institutional fragmentation: Roman Catholicism was no longer an inclusive institution. The clergy had to confine itself to its religious activities which were clearly distinguished from profane activities. Education and health gradually became autonomous sectors, with specific institutions that were going to develop progressively.
2. Recognition of legitimacy: The French Revolution didn’t destroy people’s religious needs which continued to exist within the general society. Religion was viewed as a public service and the state paid ministers of recognized religions. Religions were politically recognized as a foundation of social morality, but were at the same time kept under surveillance to ensure that they did not accrue political power.
3. Religious pluralism; The state recognized several religions but not all; it protected and controlled them in order to satisfy the religious needs of their followers and develop moral values. Other religions were more or less tolerated. Relative freedom was even given to those who decided to live their lives without the ‘crutch of religion’ (agnostics, atheists).

This profile delineates a logic that dominated the nineteenth century. However, the situation was not static or rigid. This was particularly so because for a long period, several aspects of the first threshold of laicization had not fully crystallized; other institutions of socialization (school, medicine) were not sufficiently developed to become completely autonomous. Then, there was growing conflict between those who regarded France as primarily a Roman Catholic nation and the partisans of liberal values of 1789. That conflict grew in the nineteenth ‘century between “clericalism”(political domination of a country by the religious establishment) and ‘anticlericalism’ which actively opposed any such claim. Rooted in scientific ideology, the radical forms of anticlericalism perceived religion as an outdated explanation of the world that offered only a backwards orientation, irrelevant in the context of modern democracies.

The second threshold of laicization

In France, the foundation of laïcité was rooted in the political victory of the anticlerical movement. The impression prevailed that the Republic (re-established in 1870) was threatened by a re-emergence of the clergy as a political force. A law passed in 1901 excluded religious congregations from the right to free associations. A new law passed in 1904 (in force until 1914) prohibited the members of religious orders from engaging in teaching. However, essentially, the combative anticlerical movement gave birth to a progressive pacifist form of laïcité. It was as if a revolutionary socialist party, which had assumed power through a democratic process, eventually gave birth to a social-democratic system.

During the 1880s, the Republicans introduced a religiously neutral educational system, which included a ‘morale laïque’ (lay moral instruction). That morality borrowed from a multiplicity of sources: Classical Antiquity, Christianity, the Enlightenment (from Voltaire to Kant), and occasionally from Confucius. Different traditions were interpreted from two perspectives: the dignity of the human being (which created rights and duties) and social solidarity. Beyond this, the Republicans hoped that the structure of the lay school would engender morality. As a place for imbibing tolerance, schools would enable all French children from different strata/religions to come to know and to accept one another. Through schools, the values of the Republic would themselves gain currency. Morality was itself a compromise, because a significant section of the anti-clericals averred that religion was dangerous for the Republic and its ideals.

In 1904–1905, after the crisis engendered by the Dreyfus affair, the separation of churches and state became inevitable in a climate of confrontation. Two models were possible. One was combative, as was the bill of Emile Combes, the prime minister. It was, however, rejected, especially by Jean Jaurès, the celebrated socialist leader, who hoped to legislate a law that would bring peace and make it possible to fight social inequalities. A liberal model introduced by Aristide Briand prevailed, ensuring freedom of conscience, guaranteeing the freedom to engage with religion and respect the internal organization of each religion (art. 1 and 4), even if any religion was ‘recognized’ and subsidized (art. 2).

That model of separation of religion and the state set up a religiously neutral educational system and found a new logic for emphasizing laicism. It can be seen as the second threshold of laicization. The first threshold, for its part, had three characteristics:

1. Institutional dissociation: religion was entirely optional because it was no longer considered as part of the institutional structure of society but rather as a form of free association. The religions are private institutions which have the right to organize their own affairs in religious matters.
2. Social neutrality regarding religious legitimacy, i.e. religious needs becoming the private concern of the individual and social morality be officially secular. The question of the usefulness of religion for society was no longer publicly relevant. However, within the framework of freedom of expression and of association, religions could participate in public debates on social questions and the meaning of life.
3. Freedom of religion and conviction: various religious societies related to the public sphere. The state guaranteed each citizen freedom of conscience and admitted each of them the right to associate with religious societies or associations. The individual was free to embrace any religion, follow its teachings, participate in its worship and other activities, and to propagate its doctrines and to hold office in its organizations. If s/he decided to renounce his/her religion or to embrace any othe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: the complexity of the French principle of Laïcité
• 1 A brief history of French laïcité
• 2 The three stages of French secularism
• 3 How did Catholicism shape and challenge French laïcism
• 4 Minority religions, Protestantism, and the laws on religion in France
• 5 From acceptance of diversity to debating multiculturalism: France facing affirmations of identity in the late-twentieth century
• 6 The role of French secularism in the making of the Islamic collective identity
• 7 Secularity, religion, and the construction of Europe
• Chronology of political French history
• Index