Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
The French Constitution establishes the country as a secular state: “France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs” (Article 1).
The 9 December 1905 Law regarding the separation of state and religions is the cornerstone of the French principle of “laïcité”. Article 1 reads: “The Republic ensures the liberty of conscience. It guarantees the free exercise of religion, under restrictions prescribed by the interest in public order.” Article 2 provides: “The Republic does not recognise, remunerate, or subsidise any religious denomination.” The law does not apply in three departments in the Alsace-Moselle region, which are still governed by the concordat of 1801.
The state owns and is responsible for the maintenance of all places of worship built before 1905. Eighty-seven out of 154 cathedrals (all built before 1905) in the country are owned by the French government; nearly all the remaining 67 are owned by municipalities.
Despite the separation between the state and religions, religious groups may register as associations of worship or cultural associations, or both, to receive some government benefits, such as loan guarantees or leased properties at discounted rates, and places of worship may be exempt from property taxes.
There are three types of schools in France: free and secular public schools with the state curriculum, private schools “under contract” with the state, and private “out of contract” schools. The schools “under contract,” 97 percent of which are Catholic, receive subsidies from the state, implement the state curriculum, and accept all children regardless of their religious affiliation. The independent “out of contract” schools neither receive state assistance nor are they required to follow the state curriculum.
Sweeping legislation, the Reinforcing Republican Principles bill (also known as the Anti-Separatism Law), was passed by the National Assembly on 23 July, affirmed by the constitutional court on 13 August, and enacted on 24 August 2021. According to the Council of Ministers, the “ambition of this text is to allow the Republic to act against those who want to destabilise it in order to strengthen national cohesion.” The law is organised around two goals: to “guarantee compliance with the laws and principles of the Republic in all areas exposed to the risk of separatist influence” and secondly “aims to update the system of organisation of worship resulting from the law of December 9, 1905.”
The law imposes several restrictions on education including on private educational institutions and home schooling; stricter punishments for provocation to acts of terrorism, hate speech and illegal online content; threatening civil servants; and the dissolution of groups or closure of places of worship that seriously disturb public order or violate rights or fundamental freedoms. It also includes provisions against forced marriages, polygamy, and the issuance of ‘certificates of virginity’.
In Title II of the law related to religion, there are increased requirements for financial transparency and reporting; increased reporting requirements for funding from outside France; penalties for interference with religious worship; and requirements that places of worship do not incite violence or hatred or disseminate such messages.
In a rare move, Christian religious leaders – most notably the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of France (CEF), the Protestant Federation of France (FPF) along with the United Protestant Church of France (communion of Lutherans and Reformed, EPUdF), and the Assembly of Orthodox Bishops of France (AEOF) – jointly brought before the Council of State two priority questions about the constitutionality (QPC) of the Anti-Separatism Law. As the court of last resort, the Constitutional Council ruled against them, stating that “the legislator has not infringed upon freedom of association and the free exercise of religions that is not necessary, appropriate, and proportionate”. In fact, as early as March 2021, in an article published by Le Figaro, Christian leaders complained about “systematic control by the prefect every five years of the quality of worship, control of activities and remarks greater than in other sectors of associative life, control of funding from abroad and of the resources of religious associations”.
This law “strengthens the control over religious associations and creates suspicion against them”, stated Pastor Clavairoly in a June interview with the newspaper La Croix; and this, in his eyes, with limited effectiveness against “Islamist separatism”, the government’s main target. These arguments were not accepted.
A 2004 law prohibits state school students from wearing clothing or insignia that “ostensibly manifest a religious affiliation”. According to the Ministry of Education, incidents relating to the wearing of religious clothing in schools (such as abayas and qamis) were on the rise in 2022. A 2010 law prohibits “the concealment of the face in the public space”, including wearing the niqab (which shows only the eyes) or the burqa (a full-face veil). In 2018, France’s National Assembly adopted a dress code barring deputies from wearing “any conspicuous religious sign, a uniform, a logo or commercial message, or political slogans”.
The Criminal Code increases the “penalties for crimes or offences when they are committed because of the victim's true or supposed membership or non-membership in a particular ethnic, national, racial, or religious group”.
Catholic and pro-life activists around the world, along with some French Catholic officials, expressed concern that the outcome of what became known as the “Lambert affair” would open the door to euthanasia in France. After Lambert’s death in July 2019, Pope Francis said: “Let us not build a civilisation that discards persons whose lives we no longer consider to be worthy of living: every life is valuable, always.”
In the Council of State ruling of 12 February 2021, the judge notes that freedom of religion or belief cannot, by itself, hinder the application of the law that allows the end of care to avoid any unreasonable obstinacy. Yet, the ruling does acknowledge the need to take such freedom into account to gain insight into the situation, while giving itself the right to interpret the latter.
In September 2022, the National Advisory Committee on Ethics (CCNE) gave its approval to the concept of euthanasia and assisted suicide in France, an opinion that is thought might help pave the way for such legislation. The CCNE considers that “there is a way for the ethical application of active assistance in dying, under certain strict conditions, on which it would be unacceptable to compromise”.
A decision by the Constitutional Council on 10 November 2022 confirmed that “a doctor could override the will expressed by a patient”. In this case, the patient had given written advance directives indicating that she wished to be kept alive even in the event of an irreversible coma.
Incidents and developments
According to the Central Territorial Intelligence Service, 1,659 anti-religious acts were recorded in 2021, of which approximately half were anti-Christian (857, up from 813 in 2020). Of the anti-Christian incidents, 92 percent were attacks on places of worship and cemeteries (representing two attacks per day). Attacks on individuals rose from 42 in 2019 to 66 in 2021. There were 589 anti-Semitic acts (up from 339 in 2020) and 213 anti-Muslim acts (decreased from 234 in 2020) recorded in the same period. The Jewish community was particularly affected by attacks on individuals (52 percent), and the attacks on property (places of worship and cemeteries) rose sharply. Anti-Muslim acts remained relatively low (13 percent), with the majority consisting of attacks against mosques and cultural centres.
In December 2021, at the request of President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Jean Castex mandated two MPs, Isabelle Florennes and Ludovic Mendes, with the mission of looking into rising anti-religious acts in France. The lawmakers submitted their report in March 2022.
According to the American Jewish Committee and the Foundation for Political Innovation, in 2021 60 percent of the anti-Semitic insults experienced by the respondents were made at school (middle school, high school, university, etc.). 65 percent of Jewish parents questioned in an Ifop survey for the Fondation Jean-Jaurès said they had children in public schools, compared to 85 percent of the French population, and that it seems that this difference is partly motivated by security considerations. According to the survey, 15 percent of Muslims acknowledged feeling antipathy for Jews (10 percent higher than the French population as a whole). History teachers reporting growing difficulties over the past twenty years in teaching the Holocaust. In a study on the “Jewish quality of life” in 12 European countries, France is the country in which Jews feel least safe.
During the period under review, members of the Jewish community were attacked. French courts systematically look, if need be, at any anti-Semitic motivations without prejudging the conclusions of future investigation or court decisions. This was the case involving a serious attack against an Orthodox Jewish man in Strasbourg in September 2022.
In France, jihadi terrorism remains a threat even though only a few isolated cases have been reported in the past two years. The state’s main counterterrorism agency, the General Directorate for Internal Security, warned that “in addition to expected (terrorist) threats, threats stem mostly from local actors (...), most notably people influenced by constant jihadi propaganda, this despite its lower production”. Hence, “looking after Islamist terrorist inmates, in detention and upon their release, is also a major security issue”.
In September 2021, the French Council of State approved the authorities’ dissolution of the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) and Baraka City after both associations were accused of disseminating Islamist propaganda.
In November 2021, three mosques were vandalised in Montlebon, Pontarlier, and Roubaix. In May 2022, a mosque in Metz was damaged by a Molotov cocktail attack.
As of September 2022, French authorities had closed 23 mosques over the previous two years on suspicion of “separatist activities”.
Damages at the building site of the future mosque in Angers were reported in September 2021 and in late October 2022.
A survey by France’s National Council of Scientific Research (CNRS) found that thousands, if not tens of thousands of young French Muslim graduates would leave France because of “discrimination, feeling of insecurity, of not belonging”. These are the same people, states the report, who could “serve as models of integration”.
Anti-Christian incidents during the reporting period included the murder of a Catholic priest, Fr Olivier Maire, in August 2021. Fr Maire was bludgeoned to death by Emmanuel Abayisenga, on bail awaiting trial for a July 2020 arson attack on the Nantes Cathedral.
In December 2021, Catholics taking part in a Marian procession in Nanterre were subjected to threats by a group of a dozen people calling them “Kafirs”, an Arabic term meaning “infidels”, and saying, “Wallah [I swear] on the Quran I will cut your throat”. This incident followed a previous incident in May 2021 in which a Catholic procession was attacked by far-left activists, leaving two elderly participants injured.
In February 2022, the Interior Ministry promised increased security funding for Catholic churches after a series of attacks, including at the Saint-Denis cathedral outside Paris (smashed windows and doors), in Bondy and Romainville, in the Paris Region (theft and profanation of the tabernacle in both), Vitry-sur-Seine (profanation and theft), in Poitiers (statues of saints destroyed), and Paray-le-Monial (theft of relics). For the first time, in 2021, the president of the Protestant Federation of France requested state support for security.
In 2022, hundreds of religious structures (churches, calvaries, grave markers, etc.) were desecrated and damaged. Some churches, like the cathedral of Saint-Pol-de-Léon, were targeted several times (vandalism, fire).
Prospects for freedom of religion
The principle of “laïcité” (separation between state and religion) enshrined in the constitution, and the 1905 Law in France, are the traditional cornerstones for relations between state and religion. The recent Anti-Separatism Law, however, enacted in response to rising Islamic radicalism, raises concerns of ever-greater government intrusion in, and regulation of, areas of life relating to religions or beliefs. Bishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, President of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of France, twitted on 22 July 2022 that the regime of freedom put in place in 1905 has, “since 24 August 2021, given way to a regime of control and constraints, which involve many uncertainties, (which will be) sources of future legal instability.”
In other areas, rising anti-Semitism, rising anti-Christian incidents, and anti-Muslim incidents in the period under review, are worrying signs of growing societal intolerance.
Lastly, with respect to end-of-life issues, changes in French law and recent court rulings seem to pay little heed to religious beliefs, giving rise to questions, if not worries.
The situation of freedom of religion should remain under observation.
France