![]() Kings were prominent members as well as head of the state and social order. Long the established state religion, the Catholic Church has historically played a significant role in French culture and in French life. Main article: Roman Catholicism in France ![]() ![]() The government adopted a strong commitment to maintaining a totally secular public sector. A long history of violent conflict between groups led the state to break its ties to the established Catholic Church early in the last century, which previously had been the state religion. įrance guarantees freedom of religion as a constitutional right, and the government generally respects this right in practice. Non believer/Agnostic account for 20%, Atheist 13%, and Muslim 7%. Catholics are the largest Christian group in France, accounting for 50% of French citizens, while Protestants make up 8%, and other Christians make up 2%. Īccording to Eurobarometer poll in 2012, Christianity is the largest religion in France accounting 60% of French citizens. In 2011, in a poll published by Institut français d'opinion publique 65% of the French population describes itself as Christians, and 25% as not adhering any religion. A 2011 European poll found that a third (33%) of the French population "does not believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force. French secularism also includes freedom of conscience i.e the freedom to believe or not to believe and even to change one's faith across one's life (including of agnosticism and atheism) enforced by the Jules Ferry laws and the 1905 law on the separation of the State and the Church, enacted at the beginning of the Third Republic (1871–1940). The Republic is based on the principle of laïcité, which relies on the division between private life, where adherents believe religion belongs, and the public sphere, in which each individual should appear as a simple citizen who is equal to all other citizens, not putting the emphasis on any ethnic, religious, or other particularities. įrance is a secular country where freedom of thought and of conscience which encompasses and supersedes freedom of religion is preserved, by virtue of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Main article: Religion in France Notre-Dame de Reims is the Roman Catholic cathedral where the kings of France were crowned until 1825. In French schools, pupils are expected to learn at least two foreign languages, the first of which is typically German or English.Ī revision of the French constitution creating official recognition of regional languages was implemented by the Parliament in Congress at Versailles in July 2008. He announced that bilingual education would, for the first time, be recognised, and bilingual teachers recruited in French public schools to support teaching these other languages. In April 2001, the Minister of Education, Jack Lang, admitted formally that for more than two centuries, the political powers of the French government had repressed regional languages. Many of these languages have enthusiastic advocates however, the real importance of local languages remains subject to debate. The Basque language is completely unrelated to the French language and to any other language in the world it is spoken in an area that straddles the border between the southwest of France and the north of Spain. Note that contrary to some misconceptions sometimes found in the Anglophone media, the French government neither regulates the language used by private parties in commercial settings, nor makes it compulsory that France-based Some regional languages are Roman, like French, such as Occitan. The Toubon law, from the name of the conservative culture minister who promoted it, makes it mandatory to use French in advertisements directed to the general public. For instance, they have established a system of subsidies and preferential loans for supporting French cinema. Some action has been taken by the government to promote French culture and the French language. The Académie Française sets an official standard of linguistic purism however, this standard, which is not mandatory, is occasionally ignored by the government itself: for instance, the left-wing government of Lionel Jospin pushed for the feminisation of the names of some functions ( madame la ministre) while the Académie pushed for some more traditional madame le ministre.
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