RELIGION AND SCHOOL‐EDUCATION IN A SECULAR STATE: THE FRENCH SITUATION

A major nation building concept in France is that of laïcité(secularism). Arising during the French Revolution, it gathered force in the nineteenth century, resulting in the complete separation of Church and State in France in 1905. A major goal of laïcitéwas the creation of a free, state‐supported public school system in which the teachers became the high priests of the secular state. Although certain religious minorities, the Jews and the Protestants, in particular, did quite well in France following their emancipation, making massive use of the secular schools for their own promotion in French society, their assimilation weakened their religious and community ties. Indeed, a negative result of secularism is that it has resulted in widespread ignorance on the part of many French people of all persuasions of the religious roots of their culture. This ignorance has made them intolerant of religion in general and of the religious differences manifested by an increasingly large and vocal Muslim minority, the presence of which is the confirmation that France is now a de facto plural society. The author suggests that one solution to that intolerance in France which seems to have its roots in that very laïcitéwhich at its inception had been intended to eliminate religious intolerance would be the teaching of courses in religious appreciation in the schools. Of course, this proposition raises the question of whether or not such courses should be taught by clerics or by secular teachers.