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Any attempt to understand the history of French laïcité is confronted with the challenge of where to begin, what to include, and what to omit. For present purposes, it must suffice to survey major events, personages, and themes which marked French history and contributed to the emergence of juridical laïcité in the early twentieth century. We seek to understand the historical context out of which the French concept of laïcité arose, the implications of the 1905 legal separation of Church and State, the demise of religion in France, and the current revival of interest in the subject of laïcité with the emergence of Islam and its claims. According to French philosopher and historian Marcel Gauchet, the history of laïcité in France is closely linked to the history of the State as one of the major actors in the process of the removal of religion from the public sphere. Although this has happened elsewhere, in France there has been a greater marginalization of religion.1

French history might be likened to peeling back layers of an onion, where one not only weeps, but one also finds the need to go deeper to the core. This book does not attempt to provide a comprehensive treatment of French history on which almost countless volumes have already been written. The history of the great nation of France is long and vast with innumerable events of importance and influence. Few nations have had a greater influence on world events than France. As historian William Stearns Davis observes:

France has been a participant in, or interested spectator of, nearly every great war or diplomatic contest for over a thousand years; and a very great proportion of all the religious, intellectual, social, and economic movements which have affected the world either began in France or were speedily caught up and acted upon by Frenchmen soon after they had commenced their working elsewhere.2

One of the most well-known events in modern history is the French Revolution. Gildea asks whether the French Revolution was good, bad, or both at the same time or at different times. How did the ideals of 1789 lead to the Terror of 1793? How did the guillotiners become the guillotined? The answers often depend on whom you read and on the pre-commitments and perspectives of the writers. The interpretation of events may differ according to the underlying agenda or political loyalties of the reader. To this day there are divergent opinions from different quarters of French society, from those on the political Left to those on the Right. On the political Right, there are those who contend that the French Revolution was a disaster in its attack against the Church and monarchy and that it ruined the advanced economic status of France when compared to other European nations. The Terror of 1793 was the natural consequence of anarchy, and revisionists cannot paint over the destruction of a society that the monarchy might have been able to reform if given time. On the political Left, defenders of the Revolution claim that the Revolution continues and the terror was justified to safeguard the Republic and procure freedom. Robespierre was a hero and admirable in his defense of the nation against monarchists and religionists. In fact, the guillotine was seen as more humane than former methods of torture and persecution, and both revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries committed atrocities.3

These observations do not devalue historical recording and recollection. They act as safeguards in recognition of one’s own prejudices and those of others. They provide evidence that consensus is lacking on the interpretation of historical events, that there is no single collective memory among French people, and that outsiders should tread carefully and avoid stereotypical misrepresentations of the history of others. However, given the above-mentioned cautionary remarks, there are broad brushes which appear incontestable. Few nations have experienced the centuries of upheaval suffered by the French people in the name of religion. This history contributed to the separation of the established Church from the public sphere, juridically in 1905 and constitutionally in 1946 and 1958. Over the last century there has followed a rapid demise of the dominant religion with the inauguration of a laïque Republic. Cesari observes:

For reasons particular to France’s historical situation, most notably the resistance of the Catholic church to the law of separation, this rejection of religion eventually took on a radical character. The conception of secularism [laïcité] in France is thus an extremely rigid one, in which any and all signs of religion must be eradicated from public space.4

On one hand, this book examines the failures of the established Church in France to be truly Christian in many respects, particularly in its monopolistic form and in wielding political power prior to its forced disestablishment in 1905. The failures of the Church in France are well documented, and many failures have been recognized by the modern Roman Catholic Church. Without question the Church battled forces opposed to her authority and resisted until all resistance became futile. At times, the Church contested attempts to remove her from political power. At other times, she made compromises with secular authorities. At most times, she sided with monarchism in both its absolute and constitutional forms. For example, as will be seen later, the Church gave her allegiance to Napoleon III (1808–1873) during the establishment of the Second Empire (1852–1870). This would contribute to the Church’s undoing in the Third Republic (1870–1940) when anticlerical Republicans came to power in 1879 determined to regulate the Church-State problem once and for all.

On the other hand, in all fairness to the spirit of that age, even if the Church had been faithful to her calling, the conflict between the Church and State was perhaps inevitable. The arrival of the Reformation with its emphasis on the authority of Scripture, the priesthood of the believer and the freedom of conscience, the invention of the printing press, and later Renaissance humanism in France with its emphasis on individual autonomy, conspired to undermine the Church’s authority. Man was placed at the center of the universe and became master of his own destiny on earth. The great eighteenth-century philosophical movements inspired by critical thinking, the progress of knowledge, and the ideals of tolerance and liberty sharpened the conflict against prevailing religious thought. Barzun affirms that “the zeal for explanation by measuring the regularities of nature kept strengthening Deism and atheism and weakening the credibility of a Providence concerned with individuals. Western culture was inching toward its present secularism.”5 In the nineteenth century, the conflict intensified with scientific progress, the elevation of reason, and the influence of Cartesian thought. Man became master of nature. Religious dogmas, ancient texts, and devotion to tradition previously passed on from generation to generation were viewed as backwards and prescientific. With the entrance of democracy and universal suffrage, the only source of legitimate power was found in the people which replaced the divine unction consecrating the monarchy. All this conspired to put an end to the mingling of political and religious authority and the union of the throne and altar.6

From the time of the conversion of Roman emperors to Christianity to the official separation of Church and State in the early twentieth century, the Church held or sought political power and declared itself as the only true religion as found in Holy Scriptures.7 Now, after centuries of Christian influence, the rapid dechristianization of France and most of Western Europe has taken place in a relatively short period of time. Today the great cathedrals of France are mostly known as tourist attractions. Church attendance on any given Sunday has steadily declined. This decline has been well documented and statistically France has had sharper declines than her European neighbors.8 Dechristianization has been described as the disappearance in the West of a politico-religious system which entailed an obligatory faith and practice for everyone. This phenomenon is generally understood by historians to have begun with the French Revolution in 1789, not merely as a single event, but as a decade of Revolution which forever altered the course of French history.9

French History and Laïcité

The relation of French history to the concept of laïcité is complex. The contributing events span centuries of interminable crises between the dominant Church and its rivals for power or with those seeking reform. In modern times, this panorama of events extends from the Protestant Reformation and Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century to the ideological battles in present-day France. At stake today is the meaning and relevance of laïcité in a pluralistic, democratic society. According to Bowen, “In the dominant narratives of laïcité, history has moved toward the removal of religion from the public sphere. . . . The law of 1905, celebrated as having proclaimed the separation of church and state, was but the outcome of a long period of struggle, with its Revolutionary thesis and Restoration antithesis.”10 In present discussions and debates on the place of laïcité, the invocation of the law of December 1905 on the separation of Churches and State figures prominently. One hundred years after the law was enacted, proponents and opponents of laïcité have recourse to varied interpretations and applications of the law of 1905. One incident in 2014 involved the mayor of La Garenne-Colombes who was criticized for allowing a Christmas manger scene on public property purportedly in violation of the law of 1905. His response was to remind his attackers that France has an ancient Christian culture. He criticized the ignorance of those who ignore that fact or who misunderstand the law of 1905, who wave the laïque flag but do a disservice to laïcité.11

From a historical perspective, one of the distinguishing factors of French laïcité is that it resulted from a break with the past and with religious power structures. Jean-Claude Monod explains that laïcité was introduced by the Reformation, prepared intellectually by the Renaissance, initiated by the French Revolution, and was founded largely on autonomous reason devoid of religious assumptions.12 Patrick Cabanel advances what he considers a global hypothesis in his understanding of French history. He asserts that every century over the last five hundred years France has changed the solution for dealing with the religious question which was opened by the definitive implantation of the Protestant Reformation with the Edict of Nantes in 1598 as the starting point. According to him, the Reformation forever changed the religious equation in France. He estimates that by 1560 one out of ten French people was won over by the Reformation and converted to Protestantism. That number fell to one out of fifty by the end of the eighteenth century. These figures are considered by Cabanel as measures of a double failure—the failure of Protestantism to take root in France and the failure of the monarchy to effectively treat the Protestant question. He does not consider the Edict of Nantes tolerant, pluralistic, or laïque. He argues that Protestantism was temporarily authorized and protected, yet still trapped as a minority until France once again found its unity in the Catholic religion in what he calls a coexistence in intolerance.13 The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was followed by a new edict of toleration in 1787 when it became evident that Protestantism was not going to disappear. To this edict was added state recognition of three other religious confessions alongside the Catholic Church with the Concordat of 1801. A hundred years of relative peace followed until the events of the nineteenth century which would lead to the unraveling of the Concordat and the enactment of the Law of Separation in 1905.14

Cabanel looks at two major thresholds of laicization. He sees the first threshold with several characteristics established during the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. The first characteristic was institutional fragmentation. Although religion was no longer coextensive with French society, religion remained an institution structured by the State under the Concordat. The second characteristic was State recognition of the religious needs of its citizens and the provision of salaries for ministers of different religious expressions. Religion was maintained as the moral foundation of society and the practice of catechism was continued in public schools. The third characteristic was an incomplete religious pluralism in State recognition of four religious confessions—Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, Judaism. Established laïcité was the second threshold which covered most of the twentieth century and appears to most people today as the definitive framework in defining relations between the State (public domain) and churches (confined to private spaces). In this threshold, religion was no longer considered an integral part of societal structure and was banished to the private sphere where it experienced a loss of legitimacy and where religious needs were no longer socially recognized. The State withdrew recognition of the religious confessions included in the Concordat, the Catholic Church lost its privileged place, minority religions became juridical equals, and the State, at least in principle, observed a benevolent neutrality.15

The importance of these two thresholds will be seen later in the challenges to laïcité in the early period of the twenty-first century to determine whether a third threshold has now appeared. The arrival of this third threshold might have been signaled by the writings of Nicholas Sarkozy (b. 1955), president of France from 2007 to 2012. As Minister of the Interior from 2002 to 2004, he also had conferred on him the position of Minister of Religions. During this earlier period, he wrote a book entitled La République, les religions, l’espérance. In the form of an interview, he presented laïcité in service to liberty and religion in service to society. A major chapter was given to Islam and the Republic in which he describes two variations of Islam: one official and reassuring represented by the Grand Mosque in Paris; one unofficial and worrisome in which a militant extremism was developing.16 It is significant that he wrote this book during the time when two French citizens were held hostage by Islamic militants. In his preface he declared that the kidnappers were fanatics who claimed the Islamic faith which professes the opposite of what they became and had nothing to do with God.17 Further, he distanced himself from his predecessors and their apparent indifference toward religions and considered that in past years sociological questions had been overestimated and religious reality largely underestimated.18 He spoke with an uncommon frankness in stating that religion occupied a central place in France at the beginning of the third millennium. He further clarified that the place of religion is not “at the exterior of the Republic; it is not a place in competition with the Republic. It is a place in [dans] the Republic.”19 The landscape of France has changed several times in the past and is once again undergoing change and challenges in the present.

Christian France

As we now turn to examining the place of Christianity in French history and the emergence of laïcité, important questions and distinctions must first be raised concerning the nature of French Christianity and Christendom. In posing questions on the re-evangelization of Europe, Wessels asked, “How Christian was Europe really? To what extent has it been de-Christianized today?” He initially responded that Europe was largely Christianized by AD 750 if one uses the marks of baptism and other religious rituals. However, he questions “how deeply this Christianization had really penetrated in the so-called Christianized areas” and agrees with Dutch historian Jan Romein that “mediaeval Christianity was only a thin veneer.”20 French philosopher Luc Ferry adds that many associated with the Christian faith were attached to the religious form as such, but the content, the message of love, was hardly evident in the reality of human relations.21

French historian Jean Delumeau goes further in declaring that one cannot even speak in terms of medieval Christianity and that the Christianization of Europe in that period was unsuccessful. He questions what was really accomplished in seven or eight centuries of evangelization and notes that both Protestant Reformers and their Catholic adversaries viewed the peasantry, which constituted the vast majority of Europeans, as ignorant of Christianity, given to pagan superstitions and to vices.22 With this assessment Newbigin concurs:

When we speak of a time when public truth as it was understood and accepted in Europe was shaped by Christianity, we do not—of course—mean that every person’s behavior was in accordance with Christ’s teaching. In that sense there has never been and there can never be a Christian society. But Europe was a Christian society in the sense that its public truth was shaped by the biblical story with its center in the incarnation of the Word in Jesus.23

Delumeau further asserts that one can speak of medieval Christianity only by an abuse of language or by holding to the myth of a golden age, and that those living during that period often lived as if they had no moral code.24 This specialist in Catholic Church history claims that Christianity, in its dealings with non-Christians, often practiced the law of the strongest. Christianity was proclaimed, theorized, and institutionalized but never really evident in the way people lived. It was a project or a dream that was wrongly taken for a reality.25 In pre-revolutionary structures, with the marriage of Church and State, it was necessary that everyone belong, willingly or not, to the cultural and moral framework established by the Church. For many it was simply “conformism, resignation, and forced hypocrisy.”26 When the Church lost its force, people regained their liberty outside the Church. McManners observes that “‘Christian Europe’ was a social-intellectual-cultural complex and not a concentration of converted believers” and supports that assertion with a quote attributed to Anatole France (1844–1964) who observed years later that “Catholicism is still the most acceptable form of religious indifference.”27

We are far from the days when the subjects of European kings were required to hold the faith of their sovereign and their ancestors. It may be extremely difficult for moderns to even imagine life under an imposed religion in light of the freedom of choice—religion or no religion—which most Westerners enjoy today. Yet we must understand that for centuries of European history, secular authority was at the service of ecclesiastical authority with the accompanying constraints and restraints on personal liberty. Christianity existed as a politico-religious system present in the daily life of subjects. The configuration of Church and State structures ensured that the form of Christianity which was held by those in power was rarely transformed into anything resembling biblical Christianity. It was coupled with the dominant physical presence of churches and monuments serving as a constant reminder that people lived in a Christian nation.28

This somber interpretation of church history may appear one-sided in ignoring the contributions of the Catholic Church throughout history. It is undeniable that the Church has had great influence over the centuries, has done good works, has provided relief to the suffering, and has contributed to advances in knowledge and civilization. However, no good works done can ever justify the fact that the Christian Church as it was known in France often failed to live Christianly and that opposition to the Church in many quarters arose against the evil done in the name of God. It was not for the good the Church had done that led to the separation of Church and State. It was the Church’s intolerance, oppression, and complicity with political power and its refusal to allow dissent or competing belief systems that contributed to her undoing.

It may also be helpful to distinguish between Christendom (chrétienté) and Christianity (christianisme). The former refers to people and places where Christianity dominates; the latter refers to the religion founded on the teaching, the person, and the life of Jesus Christ.29 Douglas Hall affirms that although “the Christian faith entered the world as a movement containing provocative and anti-institutional elements, it eventually expressed itself in well-defined institutional forms.”30 On one hand, Christendom dominated for centuries in European history and its institutions developed and expanded in their exercise of political control. On the other hand, Christianity was never meant to be an earthly political power. Many of the objections to the Christian faith should be seen more as reactions to Christendom rather than reactions to Christianity.

The beginning of official Christianity in Europe is dated to the conversion of Constantine (272–337) in the fourth century AD. The distinction between Church and State was erased with privileges accorded to the Church and the intervention of the emperor in the affairs of the Church. Early on, other religions were tolerated. Later under other emperors, such as Theodosius (347–395) who created a state religion, other religions were persecuted. In AD 498, following victory in the battle of Tolbiac, Frankish King Clovis (466–511) received Christian baptism on Christmas Day from the bishop of Reims along with three thousand followers.31 According to De Monclos, the exact date of Clovis’s baptism remains controversial.32 In any case, this event is regarded as the beginning of Christian France, or Christendom, a fusion of the political and religious spheres, and “the first of the Germanic nations to espouse the orthodox Christianity of the empire.”33 McCrea notes,

The first time medieval chroniclers described an event as “European” was the victory of Christian Frankish forces over a Muslim army at Poitiers in 732 . . . [then] with the crusades of the eleventh century, Western Christianity became synonymous with a European identity which defined itself against the Islamic and Byzantine Orthodox Christian civilizations to its south and east.34

After the fall of Rome in AD 476, “the absence of Roman hegemony increased the power of the church in medieval Europe. With the church’s ascendancy, ‘Christendom’ appeared—a single society with two expressions of power. The coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III in 800 made the question of who governed Christendom less clear.”35 The rule of the Carolingians, in particular the reign of Charlemagne (742–814), inaugurated a royal theocracy under the Holy Roman Empire, in “an attempt to refound the old Roman Empire of the West, but on a strictly Christian basis.”36 In other words, the monarchy by divine right (droit divin) was installed in power through the coronation and by the consecration of the Church. The king supported the Church in establishing pontifical states with financial and military participation.

At the death of Charlemagne in AD 814 the feudal period began during which time the Church represented the only organized power. This was the beginning of a pontifical theocracy where the spiritual power of the Church displaced political power as primary in governing the affairs of the people. A movement known as Gallicanism emerged in France to encourage the autonomy of the French Church from papal power. As a result of schism, a French pope was installed in Avignon in 1309 by Philippe Le Bel (1268–1314). Historically, there were two forms of Gallicanism. The ecclesiastic form affirmed the autonomy of the French Church from Rome. The political form emphasized the authority of the French king over the temporal organization of the French Church. This latter form will be prominent in the 1801 Concordat promulgated by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) of which more will be said later.37

During these early periods of Christian France there was no religious pluralism. “In the medieval West one had no choice but to be born into the (essentially unique and indivisible) Church. . . . In the Middle Ages the Church’s affairs were matters of State, but only for the elite who made the decisions.”38 In the seventeenth century, Louis XIV (1638–1715) would combat Protestantism according to the principle “one law, one faith, one king.”39 The absence of the modern concept of religious pluralism was true in most of recorded history. According to Newbigin, “Although the world has been a religiously plural place for as long as we know anything of the history of religions, most people for most of history have lived in societies where one religion was dominant and others were marginal.”40 France was unexceptional in her imposition of a State religion. Her exceptionalism lies more in the degree she has been emancipated from religion and in the history behind her present religious condition.

There were attempts throughout French history to provide religious rights for Protestants and other faiths and relief from the control of the dominant Church. Much of the success was short-lived and the freedoms obtained were lost at the whims of monarchs, revolutionaries, or Republicans. For example, in 1598 the Edict of Nantes was enacted under King Henry IV (1553–1610) who had converted from Protestantism to Catholicism. Under the terms of the Edict, Protestants were granted substantial religious rights and a measure of religious liberty. From a religious point of view, the edict granted considerable concessions to the Protestants, notably in the institution of the principle of liberty of conscience in all the kingdom and the complete liberty of worship in all the regions where Protestantism was established before 1597. From a political point of view, full amnesty was granted for all acts of war. Civil equality with Catholics was guaranteed and there was a provision for the right of access to public employment. Protestants retained territorial possession of places of safety in more than one hundred cities in France, including La Rochelle, Saumur, Montpellier and Montauban.41 The Edict was revoked by Louis XIV in 1685 and followed one hundred years later by the Edict of Tolerance promulgated in 1787 in favor of the Protestants. They would again be granted limited rights but not allowed to meet publicly for worship.42 We learn through these events that at these times in French history, the State held the authority to grant religious freedom without grounding these rights in anything but the power of the State. There was little recognition of any divine right to freely worship the God of one’s understanding or recognition of the freedom of conscience to not worship any God.

1. Gauchet, La religion dans la démocratie, 41.

2. Davis, History of France, 2.

3. Gildea, French History, 15–17.

4. Cesari, Islam and Democracy, 76.

5. Barzun, Dawn to Decadence, 378.

6. Gaillard, “L’invention de la laïcité,” 9.

7. Delumeau, Le christianisme, 21–22.

8. Greely, Religion in Europe, 208–11.

9. Delumeau, Le christianisme, 190.

10. Bowen, Headscarves, 21.

11. Juvin, “Crèche de Noël.”

12. Monod, Sécularisation et laïcité, 47.

13. Cabanel, “La question religieuse,” 167–69.

14. Cabanel, “La question religieuse,” 171.

15. Cabanel, “La question religieuse,” 174–75.

16. Sarkozy, La République, 59.

17. Sarkozy, La République, 9.

18. Sarkozy, La République, 13.

19. Sarkozy, La République, 15.

20. Wessels, Europe, 3–4.

21. Ferry, L’homme-Dieu, 245.

22. Delumeau, Le christianisme, 90.

23. Newbigin, Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, 222.

24. Delumeau, Le christianisme, 29.

25. Delumeau, Le christianisme, 41.

26. Delumeau, Le christianisme, 73.

27. McManners, Church and State, 10.

28. Delumeau, Le christianisme, 22–23.

29. Robert et al., Nouveau Petit Robert, 428.

30. Hall, End of Christendom, 6.

31. Chaunu and Mension-Rigau, Baptême de Clovis, 10.

32. Montclos, Histoire religieuse, 19.

33. Walker et al., History of the Christian Church, 150.

34. McCrea, Religion and the Public Order, 18.

35. Lillback, “Church and State,” 678.

36. Davis, History of France, 34.

37. CNEF, Laïcité française, 12–13.

38. Cameron, European Reformation, 198.

39. Baubérot, Petite histoire du christianisme, 59.

40. Newbigin, Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, 25.

41. Carenco, L’Édit de Nantes, 3.

42. CNEF, Laïcité française, 13.