Society & environment

Exhibition "Mariannes d’aujourd’hui" ["Mariannes of today" - Marianne is the symbol of the French Republic] on the façade of the Assemblée nationale [French parliament building], in 2003: 14 giant portraits of young Frenchwomen of all backgrounds, members or supporters of the suburban estates’ women’s movement "Ni putes ni soumises" ["Neither prostitutes nor slaves"].

Since February 2005 France has been commemorating the centenary of its 1905 law which instituted the separation of Church and State. It has provided an opportunity to reaffirm the three principles on which the Republican pact is founded: freedom of conscience, equality between citizens and fraternity. These three indissociable values form the basis of the French way of "living together".

French secularism is one hundred years old. The Académie des sciences morales et politiques [Academy of Moral and Political Sciences] has been given responsibility for the official commemoration of the centenary of the 1905 law throughout this year. Numerous symposia, attended by experts and representatives of the different currents of thought and religions, a website, a book intended for the general public and a collection of studies on the relationship between political and religious power from Antiquity to the present day, written by leading French historians, have been organised. This celebration is an opportunity for some profound reflection and a drive to teach people about France’s turbulent History. On 9 December 1905, the Socialist Deputy [member of the Lower House of the French parliament] Aristide Briand, got the Assembly to vote in favour of the separation of Church and State, bringing to an end centuries of confrontation in France between the Catholic Church and the political powers.

In fact, since the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had exercised, in France especially, a magisterium not only over the established powers1, but also over people’s consciences, social morals and the arts. With the humanist Renaissance (16th century) and the philosophy of the Enlightenment (18th century), a determination arose for freedom from the temporal grip of the clergy in the spheres of political, academic, creative and private life.

In order to understand why such a law was necessary in our country, it is important also to remember that, from the 1789 Revolution until the beginning of the 20th century, the Catholic Church remained in violent opposition to the Republic.

While secularism properly took root in French institutions with the law of 1905, it is primarily based on the humanist and universalist principles of Enlightenment thinkers. Indeed, it had already been clearly set forth in Article 10 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, which proclaimed that "No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law."

Then, even before the law of 1905 had made secularism one of the Republican principles to which the French are still, even today, most attached, the Jules Ferry laws, and particularly the law of 1881 on the secularisation of education, had ended the Catholic Church’s supervision of education and instituted a considerable change in the landscape of France and its institutions.

For in 1883 Jules Ferry wrote the following in a letter to schoolteachers: "Religious instruction belongs to the home and the Church; moral instruction belongs to the school. The first goal of the law is to separate School and Church, to assure freedom of conscience for both masters and pupils, to make a distinction between two domains too long confused, that of beliefs, which are personal, free and variable, and that of knowledge, which is common and essential to all." So the principle of freedom of conscience and thought is here established in state schools by law. It places the emancipation of minds as a fundamental aspect of the Republic. Later, other documents would refer to secularism, amongst them the Constitutions of 1946 (Fourth Republic) and 1958 (Fifth Republic), Article 2 of which states: "France is an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It provides equality before the law for all citizens without distinction of origin, race or religion. It respects all beliefs." Secularism is above all a legal framework which assures freedom of conscience and the equality of all citizens, whether believers, atheists or agnostics. Freedom of conscience is enshrined in Article 1 of the law of 9 December 1905 : "The Republic ensures liberty of conscience. It guarantees freedom of worship." Far from being a weapon against religions, on the contrary, it provides for the peaceful coexistence of different spiritual beliefs.

Indeed, Article 2 of the 1905 law states that: "the Republic neither recognises, nor pays nor subsidises any form of worship [...]", affirming that in the eyes of the Republic all religions are equal and that in the absence of an official religion the State is no longer the arbiter of beliefs and abstains from favouring any one of them. The State is "neutral" and the religious authorities, while they have the right to express their point of view on the laws of the State, do not however have any right to interfere in their drafting or to influence their application one way or the other.

With regard to the many wars waged in the name of a god, in the face of confrontations past2 and present between religious groups as well as the persecutions suffered even today by millions of people living in both the North and South, it would be valuable, as academic philosopher, Guy Coq, stresses, to "demonstrate the democratic and universal reach of secularism [...] and the resources for civil peace it still holds."

It is indeed "the unity of the people" (laity comes from the Greek word laos meaning people), over and above differences in beliefs, that French secularism has hoped to build. "Secularism constitutes a fundamental protection for every citizen, the guarantee not only that his or her own beliefs will be respected, but also that the beliefs of others will never be imposed upon him." This was how the President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, put it in October 2003, when he confirmed the creation of an independent authority responsible for fighting all forms of discrimination3 and recalled the "essential role of secularism in our Republic" which "determines our ability to ensure that men and women live together as equal but different, free and united." "A glue capable of uniting people against the ideological barriers that might divide them." Secularism structures social peace and is the opposite of what is today known as "communautarism" relating to the valuation of minorities, which may lead to extolling the differences between individuals and to conflict between different social groups. Secularism aims to assure that the individual has the freedom to define him or herself without forced allegiance, particularly in the place reserved for educating critical faculties and common values that is the state school. Thus it "can be made universal, for all men have something to gain from it", as the philosopher Henri Pena-Ruiz commented.

It was in this spirit that the law of 15 March 2004 was passed, which prohibits conspicuous indications of religious affiliation in schools, after a consultation process and the deliberations of a commission appointed for this purpose (see box). Portrayed by some as a measure against young women wearing the veil which risked stigmatising French Muslims, this law stipulates that "in state schools, secondary schools and high schools the wearing of symbols or dress by which the pupils conspicuously manifest religious affiliation is prohibited". It is simply a matter of not making one’s religion obvious in the context of a state school.

It is worth noting that the end result of this law, often misunderstood and attacked, especially abroad, has been largely positive. According to the latest figures from the French Ministry of National Education, it concerned 639 pupils in 2005 compared to 1,500 in 2004. "More than 550 of these situations were resolved through dialogue"-as recommended by the law-according to François Fillon, then Minister, in March 2005.

Proof that it is still necessary to defend the principle of secularism and to reaffirm that French citizenship is not based on membership of a particular religious or ethnic group, but on support for shared values, that the state school is a place for the transmission of knowledge where neutrality must be preserved and equality for all, equal treatment of girls and boys, defended absolutely. In no sense directed against one community or religion, this law is simply an affirmation of the principle of secularity in the French Republic, which guarantees everyone the freedom to practise the religion of their choice.