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France

Also Known As French
Europe

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France is constitutionally secular under the principle of laicite, formally separating church and state under a 1905 law, even as the country remains historically and architecturally Roman Catholic, home to Chartres, Notre Dame and Lourdes, one of Catholicism's most visited pilgrimage sites for its reported Marian apparitions. France also holds Western Europe's largest Muslim and Jewish populations, and the state's strict secularism has produced recurring public disputes over religious dress and symbols in schools and public life. Medieval France was a center of Christian mysticism and scholastic theology, and also of the Cathar heresy suppressed by the Albigensian Crusade in the thirteenth century. Nineteenth century Paris later became a hub for spiritualism and occult revival, including the ceremonial magic of Eliphas Levi.

Facts
Law and State
Establishment Status
Disestablished 3
The 1801 Concordat between Napoleon and Pius VII had made Catholicism the religion of the great majority of French citizens with clergy salaried by the state; the loi du 9 decembre 1905 concernant la separation des Eglises et de l'Etat ended this, disestablishing the church and providing that the Republic neither recognizes, salaries nor subsidizes any religion.
State Funding MechanismSourced to the subject's own account
France funds no religion by law nationally: the 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and the State abrogated Napoleon's 1801 Concordat everywhere except Alsace-Moselle, which was under German annexation in 1905 and never received the 1905 law. There the 1801 Concordat still governs, and under a 1993 mechanism the state pays the salaries of priests, pastors and rabbis of the region's four recognized traditions, an arrangement estimated at 54 million euros a year as of 2012, with bishops appointed by the president after Holy See agreement. 4
Apostasy or Blasphemy Law
France abolished its national blasphemy offense in 1881. The Alsace-Moselle region kept a separate one, inherited from the German Criminal Code of 1871 at Articles 166 and 167 of its own local penal code, because the region was under German rule when France repealed the national offense and the local law was never revised to match. That local blasphemy offense was repealed by the Equality and Citizenship law of 27 January 2017, after renewed calls for abolition following the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack. 5
Registration or Recognition Regime
The 1905 law lets a religious body organize as an association cultuelle (worship association) under Title IV of the law, a status carrying tax advantages tied to worship activity specifically but no state recognition of doctrine; in practice most religious bodies instead register as an ordinary association under the loi du 1er juillet 1901, which asks nothing about the group's purpose. Neither route requires state approval of a religion as such, consistent with laicite's refusal to define or recognize religions by category. 3
Ban or Official Watchlist
France maintains MIVILUDES (Mission interministerielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les derives sectaires), an interministerial body created by decree on 28 November 2002, reporting to the Prime Minister, which observes, analyzes and periodically reports on movements it assesses as presenting a risk of coercive or abusive practice. Its own stated mandate is limited to observation, analysis, interministerial coordination and public information; no power to ban, dissolve or prosecute a movement is described in that mandate. Unlike the 1995 parliamentary Guyard report that named 172 groups, MIVILUDES's own periodic reports do not publish an equivalent fixed list of named movements; it refers concerns to prosecutors and other agencies, which act under ordinary criminal, tax or consumer law if they act at all. 6
Concordat BasisSourced to the subject's own account
France holds no national concordat: the 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and the State abrogated Napoleon's Concordat of 1801 everywhere in the country. The one exception is the Alsace-Moselle region, which was under German annexation in 1905 and so never received the 1905 law; there the 1801 Concordat still governs, recognizing Catholicism, Lutheranism, Reformed Christianity and Judaism as the region's established traditions. Under a 1993 mechanism, pastors, priests and rabbis serving those traditions receive state salaries tied to civil service pay scales, an arrangement estimated at 54 million euros a year as of 2012, and public schools in the region require religious instruction at primary and secondary level, with parents able to request a secular alternative in writing. Bishops are appointed by the President after Holy See agreement, and the University of Strasbourg hosts France's only state-funded Catholic and Protestant theology faculties. 4
Government
Capital
Paris 2
Government Type
semi-presidential republic 2
Sovereignty Status
Sovereign UN member state 2
Geography
Latitude
46.2 degrees north 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Longitude
2.2 degrees east 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Demographics
Religious Composition
About 25-30% Catholic by self-identification; roughly 40% religiously unaffiliated; largest Muslim population in Western Europe by absolute numbers (about 8-10%); smaller Protestant, Jewish and Buddhist communities (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020). 1
Status
Legal Status
The 1905 law on the separation of church and state establishes laicite: the state neither recognizes, funds nor subsidizes any religion; a 2004 law bans conspicuous religious symbols in public schools and a 2010 law bans full-face coverings in public. 3
Location
Location of France Afghanistan Albania Algeria Angola Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Guam Guatemala Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Laos Latvia Lebanon Libya Lithuania Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Mali Malta Mauritius Mexico Moldova Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria North Macedonia Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
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Religion and History in France

France is historically Catholic, and Catholics remain the largest single religious group at roughly 25 to 30 percent of the population by self-identification, though religiously unaffiliated French residents now form a plurality at around 40 percent, alongside Europe's largest Muslim population by absolute numbers at roughly 8 to 10 percent, and smaller Protestant, Jewish and Buddhist communities, per estimates including Pew Research's Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020. France was long called the eldest daughter of the Church following the baptism of the Frankish king Clovis around 496 CE, and Catholic institutions dominated French religious, educational and political life for over a millennium, interrupted sharply by the French Revolution's dechristianization campaigns of the 1790s, which closed churches, executed clergy and briefly imposed a rival Cult of Reason.

French Protestants, the Huguenots, suffered severe persecution culminating in the 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which had granted them limited toleration, driving mass Huguenot emigration. France's Jewish community, the largest in Western Europe, and its Muslim population, largely descended from twentieth-century immigration from former French colonies in North and West Africa, are now central to ongoing debates over the country's secular model.

Laicite and Religious Symbols in Public Life

France's distinctive secular framework, laicite, was formalized by the 1905 law separating church and state, which ended the Napoleonic Concordat system, stripped the Catholic Church of state funding and property while guaranteeing free exercise of religion, and established the principle that the state neither recognizes, salaries nor subsidizes any religion, a settlement that took decades of often bitter conflict with the Church to achieve and that remains a foundational, closely guarded feature of French republican identity. This framework has produced repeated controversy over religious symbols in public institutions, including a 2004 law banning conspicuous religious symbols, effectively headscarves for Muslim students though also affecting large crosses and Jewish kippot, in public schools, and a 2010 law banning full-face coverings such as the niqab in all public spaces, both defended by supporters as protecting laicite and neutral public space and criticized by opponents, including United Nations human rights bodies, as disproportionately targeting Muslim women.

France has experienced a severe wave of jihadist terrorism since 2015, including the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attacks and the 2020 beheading of teacher Samuel Paty over his use of Muhammad cartoons in a free-speech lesson, incidents that have sharpened national debate over the limits of religious accommodation within laicite.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names France directly: "originated in eighteenth century France, with figures such as Court de Gebelin and Etteilla, rather than in the fifteenth century Italian cards themselves."

Source A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult TarotRonald Decker, Thierry Depaulis and Michael Dummett

This source names France directly: "and societies later established in France, Britain and above all Brazil."

Source Catechisme positivisteAuguste Comte

This source names France directly: "including the Associated Press, Agence France Presse and The New York Times, on the Japanese government's pursuit of new legislation to control Aum Shinrikyo after its petition to dissolve the group..."

Ayutthaya, Cities

This source names France directly: "Persia, Japan, the Dutch Republic and France, alongside a royal court that patronized Theravada Buddhist temple building on a scale matched by few other capitals of the period."

Source The Buddhist World of Southeast AsiaDonald K. Swearer

This source names France directly: "The Bibliotheque nationale de France is cited here from its own institutional catalog record, the appropriate source for facts about what an object in its collection is, how it is dated and..."

Source Bibliotheque nationale de France (institutional record)the holders' own account

This source names France directly: "Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thenard in France and Humphry Davy in England all obtained impure boron in 1808."

This source names France directly: "Calvin's own teaching back out across France, the Netherlands, Scotland and England."

Source CalvinBruce Gordon
Cao Dai, Sources

This source names France directly: "adherents in Vietnam, Cambodia, France and the United States, and that a United Nations finding as of January 2015 put the number of Caodaists in Vietnam at about 2.5 million, against the much..."

Source Cao Dai

This source names France directly: "co-founder, who would be exiled by France to Madagascar four years later, already on this atlas's map."

Source Cao Dai Diaspora (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names France directly: "United States, Canada, Australia and France gathered under a Caodai World Conference and voted to form the Missionary, with two stated objectives: to propagate Cao Dai abroad, and to press for the..."

This source names France directly: "temples across the United States, France, Canada and Australia independently of organisations inside Vietnam."

Catharism, Religions

This source names France directly: "in Languedoc, in what is now southern France, from the twelfth century until its violent suppression in the thirteenth and early fourteenth."

Source The Cathars (Lambert, Blackwell, 1998)Malcolm Lambert

This source names France directly: "the Catholic church that became New France's established religious institution."

This source names France directly: "over embezzlement claims, an Agence France-Presse wire report from 2025, covers the Chinese government's removal of the Shaolin Temple's abbot amid embezzlement allegations."

Historically and architecturally Roman Catholic, home to Chartres, Notre Dame and Lourdes, despite a constitutionally secular state.

Source Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020Pew Research Center
Source Sexual Violence in the Catholic Church, France 1950-2020 (the CIASE / Sauve Report)Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Jean-Marc Sauve, chair)

This source names France directly: "Used here only to independently corroborate the France ACUT/Catherine Tissier facts: a 2016 Amiens court of appeal ruling that ACUT, an Opus Dei-controlled hospitality training school, and two of..."

Source Controversies about Opus Dei (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Napoleon III pressed the Latin claims to the holy places from 1850 and obtained the sultan's firman of 1852 that precipitated the crisis.

Source Crimea: The Last CrusadeOrlando Figes

This source names France directly: "United States, Canada, Australia and France since 1975 gathered under the banner of a Caodai World Conference and voted to form the Caodai Overseas Missionary, an umbrella body uniting nineteen..."

This source names France directly: "210,000 to 900,000 people leaving France over the following two decades, alongside Louis XIV's own contemporary and almost certainly understated claim that only 1,000 to 1,500 Huguenots remained by..."

Source Edict Of Fontainebleau (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names France directly: "lose appeal of fraud conviction, France 24's 2013 report, covers the Cour de cassation's decision of 16 October 2013 upholding a French fraud conviction against Church of Scientology entities."

This source names France directly: "Histoire de la laicite en France, Jean Bauberot's 2000 study from the Presses Universitaires de France, is a scholarly history of French secularism by one of the leading French sociologists of..."

Source Histoire de la laicite en FranceJean Bauberot

Fought almost entirely on French soil; Charles VII was anointed at Reims in 1429 and France had recovered all but Calais by 1453.

This source names France directly: "North African immigration into France and South Asian immigration into Britain followed each country's own colonial and labor history over the same broad period."

This source names France directly: "Published 26 August 2017 by Agence France-Presse, carried by The Local Italy."

This source names France directly: "history press in the Anjou region of France rather than a major academic publisher, and the author's independence from the Argenteuil parish that holds the relic has not been established by the..."

This source names France directly: "published by Presses Universitaires de France in 1952, is a classic scholarly study of the eighth century Council of Lhasa, in which representatives of Indian gradualist and Chinese instantaneous..."

This source names France directly: "It premiered in France on December 1, 1993, an international co-production of Italy, France and Britain on a $35 million budget."

Source Little Buddha (1993 film) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names France directly: "mountain above La Salette-Fallavaux, France."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

This source names France directly: "near La Salette-Fallavaux, France, on 19 September 1846, who gave the two children a message calling for repentance and observance of the Sabbath."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

This source names France directly: "and the End of the Enlightenment in France, published by Harvard University Press in 1968, is the standard scholarly history of the eighteenth century mesmerist vogue in Paris and of the royal..."

This source names France directly: "Large Format Film Festival in Paris, France, direct institutional confirmation that BAPS itself produced and continues to promote the film."

This source names France directly: "today at the Bibliotheque nationale de France under shelfmark MS syr."

Source Nestorian Evangelion (Wikipedia, citing Jules Leroy)Wikipedia contributors, citing Jules Leroy's codicological analysis

This source names France directly: "to Bernadette Soubirous near Lourdes, France, beginning in 1858."

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

This source names France directly: "it for Gallia, the Latin name for France, and the immediate contemporary observation that gallus, the Latin for rooster, echoes the discoverer's own surname."

Source Periodic Table: GalliumRoyal Society of Chemistry

This source names France directly: "who fled to Holland and 200,000 to France in the war's first three months, 1.85 million refugees in France by September 1918, 386,000 refugees in Austria by the end of 1915, up to half a million..."

Source Refugees (Gatrell, 1914-1918-online)Peter Gatrell

This source names France directly: "Commissioners Charged by the King of France with the Examination of Animal Magnetism, completed 11 August 1784 by a Royal Academy of Sciences commission including Benjamin Franklin, Antoine..."

Source Report of the Commissioners Charged by the King of France with the Examination of Animal MagnetismBenjamin Franklin, Antoine Lavoisier, Jean Sylvain Bailly and others (Royal Commission)

This source names France directly: "v. France, the European Court of Human Rights' own 2014 Grand Chamber judgment, upheld France's ban on concealing the face in public, rejecting the public safety justification but accepting the..."

This source names France directly: "with, the mystery plays of France and England and Spain's auto sacramental, though it developed independently and kept its own distinct staging conventions and confraternal sponsorship."

Source Sacra Rappresentazione (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names France directly: "the reception of Salafistes (2016) in France," published in Studies in French Cinema and including an interview with co-director Francois Margolin."

Source Salafistes (Wikipedia and Studies in French Cinema)Wikipedia contributors; Maria Flood, Studies in French Cinema

This source names France directly: "Charles V, having secured a temporary truce with France and the Ottomans, moved decisively against the League once it had grown to include most of Protestant Germany, defeating its forces at the..."

Source The Reformation: A History (MacCulloch)Diarmaid MacCulloch

This source names France directly: "Pope Eugenius III and preached across France and Germany by Bernard of Clairvaux after the Crusader County of Edessa fell to the Muslim ruler Zengi in 1144, the Second Crusade brought the kings of..."

Source God's War: A New History of the CrusadesChristopher Tyerman

This source names France directly: "of the twelfth century in southern France, though the tradition itself ascribes it to a much earlier authority, and some of its material may in fact predate its final redaction."

This source names France directly: "Led personally by King Louis IX of France after years of preparation financed substantially from the French royal treasury, the Seventh Crusade targeted Egypt as the perceived key to recovering..."

Source God's War: A New History of the CrusadesChristopher Tyerman

This source names France directly: "in Ireland and Britain and also in France and Spain."

Source Sheela-na-gigs: Unravelling an EnigmaBarbara Freitag

This source names France directly: "dedicated chair at the College de France in 1814 for Jean Pierre Abel Remusat."

Began in Paris on August 24, 1572, under Charles IX and Catherine de Medici, and spread through the French provinces against the Huguenot population through October.

This source names France directly: "document organised societies in France, Britain and Brazil drew on directly, including the Brazilian positivists whose motto Ordem e Progresso, taken from Comte's own formula, was placed on Brazil's..."

Source Catechisme positivisteAuguste Comte

This source names France directly: "influential in America, Britain and France."

Source The Oxford Dictionary of World ReligionsJohn Bowker (ed.)

This source names France directly: "the 1998 FIFA World Cup final between France and Brazil tests the community's patience and their own growth toward monastic discipline."

The revolutionary French state carried out the campaign across the whole country, with Nantes its single most lethal site.

Began in Poitou in 1681 and extended across France's Huguenot regions by 1685.

This source names France directly: "Bohuslav Martinu, composed near Nice, France, at the turn of December 1954 and January 1955 after he had considered the subject for fourteen years, and premiered January 24, 1958, in Basel..."

This source names France directly: "The book has sold more than 750,000 copies across Turkey and France combined and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2012."

This source names France directly: "legal toleration in sixteenth century France, culminating in the 1598 Edict of Nantes, built from the French state and religious archival record of the Wars of Religion."

Source The Huguenot Struggle for RecognitionN. M. Sutherland

This source names France directly: "own annual reports from New France."

This source names France directly: "Henri IV of France signed the Edict of Nantes at Nantes on 13 April 1598, ending the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots."

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

King Philip IV of France ordered and directed the 1307 arrests and pressed Pope Clement V toward the 1312 dissolution.

Source The Trial of the TemplarsMalcolm Barber

This source names France directly: "Barbarossa, King Philip II of France and King Richard I of England."

Source God's War: A New History of the CrusadesChristopher Tyerman

This source names France directly: "with limited circulation outside France and Belgium at the time, which is part of why its priority went largely unrecognized for years, a historical detail rather than a flaw in the paper's own..."

This source names France directly: "toleration of Protestantism in France and drove large scale Huguenot emigration."

This source names France directly: "the tarot begin in eighteenth-century France with Court de Gebelin and Etteilla, three centuries after these cards were painted. What survives, exactly."

This source names France directly: "regions including the United States, France and Germany, and Vice Chairman Zhang Gaocheng's description of the World Federation of Daoism's founding as a landmark event in the religion's history."

This source names France directly: "from the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Russia, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and historian Micheal Clodfelter's reference compilation for its..."

Source World War I Casualties (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names France directly: "Yaker v. France, the United Nations Human Rights Committee's own 2018 communication decision, found that France's face covering ban violated Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and..."

Source Yaker v. France, Communication No. 2747/2016, CCPR/C/123/D/2747/2016United Nations Human Rights Committee

Contains

Lyon, Cities

Lyon stands at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone in eastern France.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)
Source Musee du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac (institutional record)Musee du quai Branly - Jacques Chiracthe holders' own account
Orange, Cities

Orange is a town in Provence in southern France.

Source Canons of the Second Council of OrangeSecond Council of Orangethe holders' own account
Paris, Cities
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

The community is at Taize in Burgundy, in France.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Namesake Of

Francium is named for France, where Marguerite Perey identified it at the Curie Institute. Named in 1939, the last element to be first found in nature rather than made.

Gallium is named for Gallia, the Latin name for France. A pun has long been alleged, on gallus, Latin for cock, and the discoverer's name Lecoq de Boisbaudran. He denied it. The Latin place name is the only derivation he gave.

Source Periodic Table: GalliumRoyal Society of Chemistry

Lutetium is named for Lutetia, the Latin name for Paris. Georges Urbain named it in 1907. Carl Auer von Welsbach separated the same element independently and called it cassiopeium, a name still used in parts of Germany well into the twentieth century.

Originated Here

Basques, Cultures
Celts, Cultures

Gaul, in modern France, was the Celtic heartland Caesar conquered; Brittany keeps Breton alive today.

Source Celtic Culture: A Historical EncyclopediaJohn T. Koch (ed.)

The French suit signs, clubs among them, were invented in France about 1480.

The French suit signs, diamonds among them, were invented in France about 1480.

Etteilla, Tarot Decks
Source Maniere de se recreer avec le jeu de cartes nommees tarotsEtteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette)
Franks, Cultures
Gauls, Cultures

The French suit signs, hearts among them, were invented in France about 1480.

First printed in Lyon, 1555.

The French suit signs, spades among them, were invented in France about 1480.

Grown from the visions recorded at Paray-le-Monial in seventeenth-century France.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Spread Events Here

Sources
1. Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
2. The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)
Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence AgencyView the Source
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
4. Concordat in Alsace-Moselle (Wikipedia)
5. International Religious Freedom Report
United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State, 2023View the Source
6. MIVILUDES Annual Report to the Prime Minister
Mission interministerielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les derives sectaires (MIVILUDES), Services du Premier ministre (Prime Minister's Office), Government of FranceView the Source
The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the Source
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