The French government’s longtime historical association with the Roman Catholic Church began in earnest when Charlemagne (768-814) became the first emperor to receive a papal coronation in 800. Through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the Catholic Church controlled civil records and held a monopoly over hospitals and primary and secondary education. The Church was the largest landowner in the country, and was financed through a crop tax. Nobles filled the higher ranks of the French Catholic Church, creating strong government-Church links. The strongly pro-Catholic government of the Ancien Régime persecuted the Huguenots (French Protestants) during the Protestant Reformation, and the French Wars of Religion raged for the better part of the 16th century. King Henri IV granted amnesty to the Huguenots in the Edict of Nantes (1598), which opened a path for secularism and tolerance. When Louis XIV revoked the Edict in 1685, persecution resumed, a large number of French Protestants emigrated, and Catholicism regained its status as France’s official religion. The French Revolution (1789-1799) saw a radical shift in power away from the Catholic Church as Church property was confiscated and the crop tax and special clergy privileges were eliminated. With the 1790 Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the clergy became employees of the state and the Catholic Church became a subordinate arm of the secular French government. Traditional Christian holidays were abolished and Roman Catholic priests were brutally suppressed through mass imprisonment and massacres.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1799-1814, 1815) negotiated a reconciliation with the Catholic Church in the Concordat of 1801, which named the Roman Catholic Church as the established, although unofficial, French church while still ensuring religious freedom. Struggles between Royalists and Republicans characterized much of the 19th century, the former promoting a closer Church-State relationship and the latter a further break from tradition. The 16 May 1877 Crisis under the Third Republic signaled the final defeat of the Royalists to the Republicans, who went on to establish secular education in 1882, an important landmark in the transition to French secularism. The government of France officially ended relations with the Holy See and enacted the 1905 Law of Laïcité, which declared the strict religious neutrality of the state and freedom of religious exercise. It prohibited the public funding of religions, outlawed the display of religious symbols on public buildings, and made all religious buildings built before 1905 property of the French government. The 1905 Law laid the foundations for the absolute removal of religion in the public sphere, and as the 20th century advanced, laïcité became increasingly entrenched in the fabric of French society. Relations with the Vatican were reinstated in 1921 after the approval of the Briand-Ceretti agreement, which established the right of the French Ministries of the Interior to participate in the selection of France’s Catholic Bishops.

During the middle of the 20th century, France's colonial empire broke apart as its colonies in Southeast Asia and Northern Africa secured their independence. Growth in emigration from those areas, particularly Northern Africa, resulted in an explosion of the Muslim population in France. As Islam became more prominent, cultural and religious clashes arose between the Muslim population and an increasingly agnostic and atheist society that did not recognize religious claims in public matters, echoing earlier quarrels over the place of the Catholic Church in French society and government. In 2004, the French government banned conspicuous religious symbols, such as large Christian crosses, Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans, and Muslim hijabs, in French schools, arguing that outward public displays of religion were contrary to French values. A series of riots in Autumn 2005 exposed the frustration many immigrants feel at their difficulty integrating into French society, torn between their own religious traditions and the social demands of laïcité. French politicians generally do not discuss religious beliefs or use religious arguments in debates. President Nicolas Sarkozy (2007- ) has challenged the 1905 Law of Laïcité by advocating subsidies for Muslim prayer rooms as a way to better integrate Muslims into French society. Tensions between France’s Muslim population and its now traditional laïcité are poised to remain a challenge as centuries of Catholic hegemony give way to both secularism and religious pluralism.

Secularism is a central principle of the modern French state, and France’s sizable Muslim minority often charges the government with discrimination and anti-Muslim bias. Since 2004, overt religious displays have been banned in public school, including Jewish skullcaps and Muslim hijabs, and in July 2010 France’s National Assembly approved a complete ban on wearing a face-veil in public in a near unanimous vote. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has insisted that the ban in not intended to persecute Muslims but rather to protect the rights of women and preserve French national values. Only an estimated two-thousand French women wear the face-veil and French government officials have argued that the ban will continue to discourage fundamentalism from taking root in France. The law is being scrutinized by the French court system, while opinion polls suggest that nearly eighty percent of French citizens support the ban. Several prominent Muslim leaders have voiced their support, including Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris. Following the passage of the bill, Boubakeur stated that “Islam, in the West, must adapt its faithful.” Other Muslims leaders, like Mohammed Moussaoui, the leader of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, who has been critical of the face-veil, opposed the ban because it singles out Muslim women.

Though France is a historic center of Catholicism, in the modern age the French have enforced an assertive form of secularism, based on the principle of laïcité. The French Constitution guarantees religious freedoms, but is otherwise silent on matters of religion. The legal framework for laïcité is provided by the 1905 Law on the Separation of Church and State, which ended several historic ties between the Church and state and gave the government substantial tools by which to intervene in religious affairs. Since the decolonization of Africa, France has become home to a sizable Muslim minority which constitutes about 10% of the population. The recent popularity of xenophobic and ultra-nationalist political movements like the National Front has led to increased religious and ethnic tension. Muslims immigrants from North Africa often face systematic discrimination. A controversial 2004 law bans the wearing of religious garb—including turbans, headscarves, and kippas—in public schools. The law has been criticized by the United Nations, the European Human Rights Commission as well as Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh organizations for inhibiting religious expression. The French Government also actively discourages public participation in fringe religious movements and in 1995 published a list of groups considered “cults,” which included Scientology and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Though France’s current Prime Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy has advocated for more religious engagement in French society, he is a vocal supporter of the 2004 ban on religious garb.

The French constitution, adopted in 1958 and typically referred to as the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, provides for freedom of religion. Article 1 makes the only mention of religion in the document, declaring France a secular state, though the original French concept of laïcité does not parallel that of secularism in the United States. The French interpretation is based on a strict division between the private sphere, where religious display is appropriate, and the public sphere, where, as Article 1 states, all citizens are simply equal before the law, without distinction of religion. In practice, the government generally respects religious freedom, but several concerns remain, especially regarding Muslim communities. For instance, while the foundational 1905 law on the separation of church and state bans discrimination on the basis of religion, public schools are secular in accord with the concept of laïcité. Legislation passed in 2004 bans students and employees from wearing conspicuous religious symbols, including the Muslim headscarf, Jewish skullcap and large Christian crosses.