The Evolution of Secularism in France: Between Two Civil Religions

Abstract

In 2005, an International Declaration of 250 academics from 30 countries affirmed that the reality encompassed by the term secularism does not belong to “any culture, nation or continent.” Moreover, they declared that secularism can “exist in situations where the term has not been traditionally used.” The authors of the declaration define secularism as the outcome of three parameters: first, the freedom of conscience and the collective practice of this freedom; second, the nondomination of religion the principle of equality and nondiscrimination for religious reasons. Nowhere does such a secularism that would correspond completely to these parameters exist. On the other hand, in certain countries we find some concrete and relative forms of secularism that differ according to historical and social contexts and give more importance to one or the other of these three aspects.