No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Laïcité and Freedom of Conscience in Pluricultural France
Abstract
The first theoretical definition of French laïcité was given by philosopher Ferdinand Buisson. In 1882 an important secular law was passed, establishing that the state schools had to become religiously neutral. According to Buisson, laïcité is the result of a historical process in which the public institutions freed themselves from the power of religion. In France, the decisive factor in this process was the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” As a result, the idea has prevailed of a “secular State, neutral toward all religions, independent from all clerics, free from all theological conceptions.” That secular state makes possible “the equality of all French in front of the law, the freedom of all religions…and the civil rights guaranteed without religious conditions.”1
... Freedom of conscience is located halfway between freedom of thought and freedom of religion. Jean Baubérot (2014) argued that freedom of thought gives the individual tools and intellectual mechanisms that allow them to apply their conscience and to freely exercise their choices regarding sentimental and religious convictions. Meanwhile, freedom of conscience refers to the right of an individual to crystallize their convictions, including religious convictions and faith or lack thereof, in full freedom and independence, allowing them to embrace the religion of their choice or choose not to recognize any religion without being vulnerable to punishment or exclusion and without detracting from citizenship. ...
... Laïcité would agree with the Church's formula only in its second step-subsidizing of Church buildings by the state-and then only if they became state property. More generally, Laïcité removes religion from the public sphere (Bauberot 2014), or introduces a "Rigid Control Model" (Drury 2017, p. 11); no such idea is indicated in the Catholic Church's adaptation to Modernity. ...
The aim of this paper is to assess the Catholic Church’s formula for adaptation to Modernity from the perspectives of contemporary models of Secularism. For this purpose, it will use the typology of Jacques Berlinerblau, with five models of Secularism (Separationism, Disestablishment, Laïcité, Accommodationism, and Atheistic Secularism). For some of these models, the Church’s formula will be found—to different extents—agreeable, while other models will regard it as hardly acceptable. The assessment will proceed by defining Modernity, outlining the Catholic Church’s formula for adaptation to modern ideas, and discussing five different models of Secularism.
This Element introduces readers to the problem of anticultism and antireligious movements in France. The first section offers an overview of anticultism in France, including the paradoxical place of modern French secularism (laïcité) that has shaped a culture prejudiced against minority religions and new religions (sectes or 'cults') and impacted Europe more broadly. This includes state-sponsored expressions, in particular MIVILUDES, an organization funded by the French government to monitor cultic or sectarian deviances. The second section takes up the case of the American-born Church of Scientology, tracing its history in the country since the late 1950s and how it has become a major focus of anticultists in France. The Element concludes with reflections on the future of new and minority religions in France. A timeline provides major dates in the history of anticultism in modern French history, with a focus on items of relevance to Scientology in France.
This article offers a brief introduction to the institutional history of the Church of Scientology in France (1959–present) before turning attention to the current state of Scientology in relation to state-sponsored anti-cultism and laïcité. In France, groups regarded as “sectes” (cults) are monitored by the French government’s MIVILUDES (Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires, the Interministerial Mission of Vigilance and Combat against Cultic Deviances). As of late 2022, MIVILUDES is overseen within the French government by Sonia Backès, Secretary of State (Deputy Minister) for Citizenship. Backès, a former Scientologist, was raised in the Church of Scientology, completed Scientology courses, and attended a “Study Tech” school that made use of the educational methods of L. Ron Hubbard, among other aspects of participation, before ceasing activity in the group as a teenager. Backès has become a vocal opponent of Scientology, claiming she escaped from the group in an exit narrative that is disputed by family members. Backès’s apparent transformation from an “ordinary leave-taker,” “defector,” or “invisible former member” to a highly vocal “apostate” serves as a case study of a new expression of Scientology ex-member identity that is not well examined in the NRM literature on apostasy and disaffiliation—that of a second-generation (former) member in a position of political power. In a country like France, this form of political power can be operationalized and weaponized against new or minority religions such as Scientology, all with the backing of the state.
While scholars have often pointed to the fact that France might be an exceptionally irreligious country, this hypothesis has not yet been tested with longitudinal data; and nor have researchers tried to account for this alleged irreligiosity. The present article tries to fill this gap in the literature by comparing France to other Catholic countries in Western Europe. To do so, we use the Church Attendance and Religious change Pooled European (CARPE) dataset, which to date is the most extensive dataset of church affiliation and church attendance in European countries, as well as International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data that allow us to measure religious beliefs and make retrospective estimations as far back as the 1910s. We find that France shows significantly lower aggregate religiosity than other Catholic countries in Western Europe, although this difference has diminished in the last few decades; and this low level of religiosity cannot be explained by France-specific period effects operating in the last 40 years. Rather, secularization in France takes the form of cohort replacement, which has led to differences in religiosity between the countries being reproduced from one generation to the other. In other words, France is so irreligious because it began on the path of secular transition earlier or from a lower level than comparable countries.
La laïcité expliquée à M. Sarkozy et à ceux qui écrivent ses discours
- Jean Baubérot