State-Church Relationship: France

One of the most extreme countries in terms of organization of state and church would be France with its constitutional principle of secularism (laïcité). The French Republic nowadays remains a majority Catholic country.

In France, public services are secularized, religious denominations enjoy legal equality and the principle of non-discrimination applies among individuals in terms of their beliefs. Moreover, the strict neutrality in the educational sector of primary schools is assured. Also, the State has no right to get involved in the internal functioning and organization of religious denominations as soon as those matters cover religious practices or questions of belief.

In France, majority of the population are Catholics.
Muslims are the second largest group in number (approx: 3,000,000).
Atheists: 6% of the country’s citizens
Protestants: 2%;
Buddhist: 1%.
Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that 250,000 persons attend their services either regularly or periodically.
Orthodox Christians number between 80,000 and 100,000; the vast majority of these persons are associated with the Greek or Russian Orthodox Churches.
The Jewish community residing in France numbers between 600,000 and 700,000 persons (approximately 1 percent).

The principle of equality in religious affairs is such that there should not be discrimination between individuals, and between individuals and the administration. This principle is as well reflected in the relationship between the State and the corporate religious denominations; yet, the general statement that French law in the religious arena is essentially directed at the regulation of individuals in the framework of the private sphere remains certainly undisputed.

General Law

Religious groups must apply with the local prefecture to be recognized as an association of worship and therefore receive tax-exempt status under the 1905 statute. The prefecture, upon reviewing the documentation supplied regarding the association’s purpose for existence, can grant that status. In order to qualify, the purpose of the group must be solely the practice of some form of religious ritual. Printing publications, employing a board president, or running a school can disqualify a group from receiving tax-exempt status.

The Government currently does not, for instance, recognize Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Church of Scientology as fulfilling the requirements for a religious association, and therefore subjects them to a 60% tax on all funds they receive.

Islam in France

The debate continues over the question whether denying Muslim girls the right to wear headscarves in public schools constitutes a violation of the right to practice their religion. In 1989, local school officials in Grenoble denied Muslim female students the right to wear their foulard in class due to a law that prohibits proselytizing in schools. Their action was upheld in a decision rendered in 1989, which ruled that the “ostentatious” wearing of the Muslim headscarves violated the law in question. After much unfavourable media attention to the wearing of the foulard, the Ministry of Education issued a directive in 1994 that prohibits the wearing of “ostentatious political and religious symbols” in schools. The directive does not specify the “symbols” in question, leaving school administrators considerable authority and discretion to do so. Eventually, the Conseil d'Etat in 1995 affirmed that simply wearing a headscarf does not provide grounds for exclusion from school and subsequently struck down some decisions to expel girls for wearing their foulards.

Conclusion: State and Church in France

Statistics seem to prove that the French Republic is still nowadays a predominantly Catholic country; yet, the actual proportion of citizens actively practicing their religion and belief in this group is significantly lower than in, for instance, the Muslim community.

France, in its overall religious structure, is dominated by the Law from December 1905 stipulating the general separation of state and church, yet, history still – and heavily so – preserves its influence in the French legal system by safeguarding specific rules applicable to certain areas or territories where political developments did not allow the establishment of a coherent and uniform system throughout the whole political unit. To which degree religion still is a vital topic of discussion in the French society is demonstrated and emphasized by the current political debate about the introduction of a law banning headscarves and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools.