What is secularism… and what is it not?
The principle of the separation of churches and the state, that is to say of their reciprocal independence, was established by the law of December 9, 1905. France is thus an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic ( article XNUMX of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic)
The question of secularism and more broadly that of the religious question has been since the end of the 1980s (wearing of headscarves by teenage girls in a college in Creil), a regularly controversial subject in French society as well as a notion that is too often wrong. understood or misinterpreted.
Many questions arise, for public officials in particular and citizens in general, on what is allowed or not, on the concepts of fundamental freedoms, signs or clothing with religious connotations, respect for public order, neutrality of the different spaces.
With absolute respect for freedom of conscience, secularism is the guarantor of French-style “living together”, a concept recognized by the European Court of Human Rights.
