May 7, 2021: French Secularism by Jared Shackelford

What is religion’s role in the state? What is the state’s role in religion? French society has long fluctuated between extremes on both sides, with the state sometimes exerting strong influence on the religion that its citizens practiced and conversely demanding that they keep their beliefs entirely private and out of public life. As far back as the Middle Ages, French nobility competed with the Pope for influence over French Catholics, with King Philip IV going so far as to arrest and imprison Pope Boniface VIII after his attempts to exert further control over French state affairs. By 1789 and the French Revolution, Catholicism was still the official state religion of France, but with certain special privileges and increased autonomy for French clergy. The Church’s revenue in France was estimated to be up to 150 million livres, an immense sum. French clergy owned about six percent of French land, operated schools and hospitals, was entitled to collect the tithe (or one-tenth of agricultural production), and was exempt from direct taxation on its earnings.^[1] 

At the beginning of the French Revolution, the French monarchy was nearly bankrupt. King Louis XVI was forced to call the three estates of French society (nobility, clergy, and everyone else) in order to gain much needed funding. After the three French estates were called and began enacting sweeping reforms over nearly all aspects of French society, the clergy agreed to give up the tithe and allow the French government to control future funding. While the revolution was chiefly about reforming and then overthrowing the existing political order, many revolutionaries were also fighting against the excesses of the church.^[2] Eventually, the revolutionary National Assembly nationalized all church land in France. By July 1790, the new French government approved the Civil Constitution of the Clergy which redrew dioceses to match state political boundaries, created a new pay scale for the clergy and allowed citizens to elect their own priests and bishops. The government also decreed that all clergy must swear loyalty to the government or give up their salary and position. These measures were highly inflammatory and contributed to the outbreak of a huge rebellion in the Vendee region that ultimately resulted in over 240,000 deaths.

As the revolution continued and repression against French clergy became increasingly severe, the revolutionary government created their own religious equivalents for French citizens to follow. The Cult of Reason was an attempt to replace Christianity with a belief system centered on the personification of Reason, enlightenment ideals and the perfection of mankind through logic and freedom. Many French churches were redecorated with busts of famous enlightenment figures and were scenes of “festivals of reason”. Robespierre also created the Cult of the Supreme Being. Robespierre believed in the existence of a god, and further believed that the French needed some form of religion in their lives in order to be virtuous, good citizens. In practice however, the short lived Cult of the Supreme Being was little more than a personality cult for Robespierre himself, meant to cement his hold on power.^[3]

After Napoleon Bonaparte seized power and ended the Revolution, he negotiated a return of the Catholic Church to French society after agreeing to the Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pious VII. While it did not make Catholicism the official French state religion again, it declared that Catholicism was the “religion of the great majority of the French”. The Church gave up its claims to property that had been seized by the French government, acknowledged that the French state could nominate bishops, but gained the right to veto nominations. While Napoleon himself was not particularly religious, he recognized the utility of increased social cohesion gained from ending state attacks on the Catholic church.

In 1881 and 1882, Minister of Public Instruction Jules Ferry introduced laws that mandated public and free secular education under the French government. This was the beginning of modern French state secularism (or laïcité ) and the beginning of the end of the Catholic Church wielding significant power in France. Several years later, the Law of 1905 officially established the separation of the French government and any church. It abolished Napoleon’s Concordat of 1801 and ended the system of “recognized religions”.^[4] These two laws paved the way for the modern secularism practiced by the French government. In theory, the policy of “laïcité” allows the French state to wash its hands of religion completely. If the government does not favor or even acknowledge any religion, it can theoretically serve all of its citizens in a more equal and fair way.

However, there are some in France today who feel persecuted or excluded because of this policy. In 1989, three young Muslim girls were dismissed from school when they arrived to class wearing the hijab.^[5] While the majority of French citizens saw this as French Muslims’ refusal to fully integrate into French society, many Muslims felt that they were being excluded from French society due to religious differences.^[6] Many Muslims felt further ostracized after a 2010 law that banned the wearing of all facemasks in public places, which notably included the burqa and niqab. Another law, since overturned, banned the burkini, or the female full body bathing suit meant to promote modesty.^[7] There have been multiple attacks by Muslim terrorists in France in recent years. In 2015, gunmen killed 12 and wounded 11 more in an attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper office after it printed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. A French teacher was beheaded in October 2020 after showing his class similar cartoons. French conservatives have also used laïcité to target Islam broadly and increase their own electoral success.^[8]

While both the United States and France embrace religious freedom, it comes from fundamentally different directions. Patrick Chamorel argued that the United States offers a freedom of religion, where a citizen is theoretically welcomed whatever their creed.^[9] American courts may interpret laws more flexibly when they have to do with matters of personal religious belief (perhaps the use of hallucinogens during Native American ceremonies).^[10] This is a sharp contrast to France, which has instituted measures that ensure a freedom from religion, where one is free to worship in the privacy of their own home but where that religion has no place in public or governmental affairs.^[11] Finding a balance between respecting religious minorities and maintaining France’s secularism and liberal values will almost certainly remain a divisive French political issue in the future.

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^[1] https://www.historytoday.com/archive/french-revolution-and-catholic-church

^[2]https://www.brookings.edu/research/muslims-and-the-secular-city-how-right-wing-populists-shape-the-french-debate-over-islam/

^[3] https://ageofrevolution.org/200-object/the-cult-of-the-supreme-being/

^[4]https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/coming-to-france/france-facts/secularism-and-religious-freedom-in-france-63815/article/secularism-and-religious-freedom-in-france

^[5] https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/islam-and-laicite/

^[6] Ibid

^[7]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/08/26/frances-top-administrative-court-overturns-burkini-ban/

^[8] Brookings, Muslims and the Secular

^[9] American Purpose

^[10] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/french-views-of-religious-freedom/

^[11] Ibid