Religion in France

More recently, there has been a series of sample surveys used to determine the religious composition of the population, with the most official ones carried out by the Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union, and the government of France.

Because of a long history of anticlericalism, the state cut its institutional ties with the Catholic Church in 1905 and made a strong promise to keep the public sector free of religion.

Religious conflicts resumed at the end of the 17th century, when Louis XIV, the "Sun King," initiated the persecution of Huguenots by introducing the dragonnades in 1681.

As a result, a large number of Protestants—estimates range from 200,000 to 500,000—left France during the following two decades, seeking asylum in England, the United Provinces, Denmark, the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire (Hesse, Brandenburg-Prussia, etc.

In practice, the revocation caused France to suffer a brain drain, as it lost a large number of skilled craftsmen, including key designers such as Daniel Marot.

They had discarded skepticism and now promoted the wave of Catholic religiosity that was sweeping Europe, with a new regard to the Virgin Mary, the Saints, and popular religious rituals such as saying the rosary.

A book by François-René de Chateaubriand entitled Génie du christianisme ("The Genius of Christianity") (1802) had an enormous influence in reshaping French literature and intellectual life.

[24][25] In terms of foreign policy, the French army stopped the anti-clerical Kingdom of Italy from taking full control of Rome after it was formed in 1860 and took over parts of the papal states.

In Paris, the conservative Gallican bishops helped the Emperor control the French people, while liberal Catholic intellectuals wanted to use the Church as an instrument of reform.

In 1870 he had to bring his army home when he declared war on Prussia, and the kingdom of Italy promptly swallowed up the papal states, and the Pope's secular power shrunk to just the Vatican.

In 1892, he issued an encyclical advising French Catholics to rally to the Republic and defend the Church by participating in republican politics ('Au milieu des sollicitudes'[30]).

It also undermined morale in the army, as officers realized that hostile spies examining their private lives were more important to their careers than their own professional accomplishments.

Alsace-Moselle maintains a local law of pre-1918 statutes which include the Concordat: the national government pays, as state civil servants, the clergy of the Catholic diocese of Metz and of Strasbourg, of the Lutheran Protestant Church of Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine, of the Protestant Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine, and of the three regional Israelite consistories, and it provides for now non-compulsory religious education in those religions in public schools and universities.

[citation needed] Furthermore, the state ban on wearing conspicuous religious symbols, such as the Islamic female headscarf, in public schools has alienated some French Muslims, provoked minor street protests and drawn some international criticism.

[35] In October 2005, the predominantly Arab-immigrant suburbs of Paris, Lyon, Lille, and other French cities erupted in rioting by socially alienated young people, many of them second- or third-generation immigrants.

[38] In March 2012, a Muslim radical named Mohammed Merah shot three French soldiers and four Jewish citizens, including children in Toulouse and Montauban.

In January 2015, the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, that had ridiculed Muhammad, and a Jewish grocery store came under attack from radicalized Muslims who had been born and raised in the Paris region.

The New York Times summarized the ongoing debate: So as France grieves, it is also faced with profound questions about its future: How large is the radicalized part of the country's Muslim population, the largest in Europe?

During World War II, the Vichy government collaborated with Nazi occupiers to deport numerous French Jews and foreign Jewish refugees to concentration camps.

[62][63][64] Hinduism is a minority religion followed in France by less than 0.1% of total population in 2010,[65] mainly by Indians and Sri Lankans, in whom Tamils community forms a major group in the country.

[66] Hinduism is most influential in the French Overseas department of Réunion where Hindus make up 6.7% of the population[67][68] and most of the large towns have a functioning Hindu temple.

[69] Though being in very small number, the Hindu culture has deeply influenced the society of France by Yoga, Meditation and in recent times organizations like ISKCON have played a major role.

[70][71][72] Notably, French-Indian Mirra Alfassa known to her followers as The Mother or La Mère founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and was highly influential on the philosophy of Integral Yoga.

[75] The 2020 national survey conducted by the INSEE found that about 1% of the French population adhered to minority religions not identifiable as Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, or Jewish.

[76] According to the 2007 edition of the Quid encyclopedia, other notable religious minorities included the New Apostolic Church (20,000), Dunovism (20,000), Sukyo Mahikari (15,000–20,000), the New Acropolis (10,000), the Universal Alliance (1,000), and the Grail Movement (950).

[76] Since the 1990s, the French government has been closely monitoring minority religious groups — through the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France and the MIVILUDES — in order to identify socially disruptive and/or dangerous tendencies among them.

[76] In Paris and the surrounding Île-de-France region, French Muslims tend to be more educated and religious, and the vast majority of them consider themselves loyal to France.

According to Salah Bariki, advisor to the mayor of Marseille in 2001, at a Koranic school in Nièvre, only three percent of the books were written in French, and everything was financed from abroad.

She supported the public's participation in financing an Islamic cultural centre in Marseille to encourage Muslims to develop and use French learning materials in order to thwart foreign indoctrination.

[82] Local authorities have financed the construction of mosques, sometimes without minarets, and called them Islamic "cultural centres" or municipal halls rented to "civil associations".