thumb|right|[[Liberté, égalité, fraternité|Motto of the French Republic on the tympanum of The Collegiate Church of Saint Pancras in Aups commune, Var department, which was installed after the 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and the State. Such inscriptions on a church are very rare; this one was restored during the 1989 bicentennial of the French Revolution.]]
(; 'secularism') is the constitutional principle of secularism in France. Article 1 of the French Constitution is commonly interpreted as the separation of civil society and religious society. It discourages religious involvement in government affairs, especially in the determination of state policies as well as the recognition of a state religion. It also forbids government involvement in religious affairs, and especially prohibits government influence in the determination of religion, such that it includes a right to the free exercise of religion.
French secularism has a long history: Enlightenment thinkers emphasized reason and self direction. Revolutionaries in 1789 violently overthrew the Ancien Régime, which included the Catholic Church. Secularism was an important ideology during the Second Empire and Third Republic. For the last century, the French government policy has been based on the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, which is however not applicable in Alsace and Moselle. While the term has been used from the end of the 19th century to denote the freedom of public institutions from the influence of the Catholic Church, the concept today covers other religious movements as well.
Concept
relies on the division between private life, where adherents believe religion belongs, and the public sphere, in which each individual should appear as a simple citizen who is equal to all other citizens, not putting the emphasis on any ethnic, religious, or other particularities. According to this concept, the government must refrain from taking positions on religious doctrine and consider religious subjects only for their practical consequences on inhabitants' lives.
It is best described as a belief that government and political issues should be kept separate from religious organizations and religious issues (as long as the latter do not have notable social consequences). This is meant to both protect the government from any possible interference from religious organizations and to protect the religious organization from political quarrels and controversies.
Proponents argue that itself does not necessarily imply any hostility of the government with respect to any religion, asserting that French state secularism is actually based upon respect for freedom of thought and freedom of religion. Therefore, the absence of a state religion—and the subsequent separation of the state and church—is considered by proponents to be a prerequisite for such freedoms.
History
The French word comes from Latin , which is a loanword from the Greek (, 'of the people'), itself from (, 'people'). The French suffix is equivalent to the English .
Secularism is a concept rooted in the French Revolution, beginning to develop since the French Third Republic after the Republicans gained control of the state.
While the term laity originally meant everyone who is not clergy, after the Revolution it came to denote speparation of religion from all branches of government, prohibiting the establishment of a state religion and endorsing government neutrality with respect to religion and atheism.
From the end of the 19th century, the word has been synonymous with secularization—among countries where the Catholic Church had retained its influence—meaning the freedom of public institutions (especially primary schools) from the influence of the Church. It was not until the Constitution of 1946 from the French Fourth Republic that the word appeared explicitly as a constitutional principle entailing legal effect, but without being further specified. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy initially criticized this approach as a "negative " and wanted to develop a "positive " that recognizes the contribution of faith to French culture, history, and society, allows for faith in the public discourse, and enables government subsidies for faith-based groups. arguing that faith should come back into the public sphere. On 12 September 2008, in line with Sarkozy's views on the need for reform of , Pope Benedict XVI said that it was time to revisit the debate over the relationship between church and state, advocating a "healthy" form of . Meeting with Sarkozy, he stated: