Freedom of religion in France

Freedom of religion in France is guaranteed by the constitution and the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Vocabulary

There exist misleading false cognates between French and English regarding religion:

The French culte means "(religious) worship", or, in a legal context, "religion" taken in a broad sense. An organization cultuelle is thus an organization that supports religious worship, not a "cult".
The French secte can have the meaning of the English sect, especially when applied to Buddhism. However, in general parlance, it has the derogatory meaning of the English "cult".

Government and religion in France

The relation between government and religious organizations in France is defined by the 1905 "Law concerning the separation of the churches and the state" ("Loi concernant la séparation des Églises et de l'Etat"). It's first sentence is, though:

"The Republic assures freedom of conscience. It guarantees the free exercise of religious worship under the sole restrictions hereafter in the interest of public order. The Republic does not grant recognition nor pay nor subsidises any church." ("La République assure la liberté de conscience. Elle garantit le libre exercice des cultes sous les seules restrictions édictées ci-après dans l'intérêt de l'ordre public. La République ne reconnaît, ne salarie ni ne subventionne aucun culte.")

The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, of constitutional value, states:

"No one may be questioned about his opinions, [and the] same [for] religious [opinions], provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law."

and:

"The law has the right to ward [i.e., forbid] only actions [which are] harmful to the society. Any thing which is not warded [i.e., forbidden] by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it [i.e., the law] does not order."

From this follows that the French government cannot arbitrarily regulate and prohibit religious activity; it is strictly constrained to regulate it only to the extend that there exists a public order need to prohibit actions harmful to society (such as, for instance, human sacrifices).

The French concept of religious freedom did not grow out of an existing pluralism of religions but roots in a history with Roman Catholicism as the single official religion and including centuries of persecution of people not endorsing it, or straying from the most official line, from the Cathars to the Hugenots and the Jansenists – this lasted until the French Revolution.

French insistence on the lack of religion in all things public (laïcité or secularism) is a notable feature in the French ideal of citizenship. This concept of secularism, also plays a role in ongoing discussions about the wearing scarves by moslem women in public schools.

The French Republic has always recognised individuals rather than groups and holds that its citizens' first allegiance is to society in general and not to a particular group, religious or otherwise; the opposing attitude, known as communautarisme, is generally considered undesirable in political discourse in France. On the other hand, the state sees also its responsibility rather to protect individuals from groups than to protect groups, religious or others.

Apart from special cases due to historical circumstances (the Alsace-Moselle and the military chaplaincy regimes), the French government is by law prohibited from granting official recognition to religion, and is also prohibited from subsidizing them or paying their personnel. However the government grants recognition to legal entities (associations) supporting religious activities. The difference is important, since the French government refuses to legally define what is a religion and what is not, and refuses to legally delimit the boundaries of religions.

Individuals organizing as groups with the purpose of worship may register as such and get significant tax exemptions set by law. Religious groups with non-worship activities are free to get organised as associations with the usual tax exemptions granted to secular associations. These definition are covered by an extensive body of jurisprudence which focuses on the activities of the groups from a financial point of view, and does, according to law, not take religious doctrine into account.

The population of France is roughly 70% Roman Catholics, 20% not religious, 10% Muslim; among the Catholics, church attendance is low, and polls indicate that a significant proportion of the population is atheist or agnostic.

Minority religions and cults in France

France, as other countries, was aware of various tragedies caused by destructive cults such as Jonestown, the Branch Davidians and Aum Shinrikyo, and, closer, the suicides and murders of the Order of the Solar Temple which happened in Quebec, Switzerland and France.

Moreover, since the 1970s and 1980s an increasing number of new religious movements such as ISKHON, Children of God, Scientology, Unification Church have become active in France.

The population in general is not in favor of cults. A 2000 poll that sampled 1,000 persons, indicated that the majority of the polled people considered cults a significant threat to democracy (73%), their family and friends (66%), and themselves (64%).

Government activities

In 1982 premier minister Pierre Mauroy requested a report on sectes which was delivered by Alain Vivien in 1983. The "Rapport Vivien" [1] outlines problems of families, possible reasons for this sudden increase in such groups, sects as described by themselves and by others, the legal situation in France and abroad, and recommends some actions like education of children in the sense of laiceté, better information of the general public, mediation between families and adherents by a family court, help to French adherents abroad, attention on the rights of children. It concludes with the Voltaire quotation: "Que chacun dans sa loi cherche en paix la lumière." ("So that everyone within its law can search in peace for the light")

The National Assembly instituted a "board of inquiry regarding cults" (commission d'enquête sure les sectes) headed by parliament members Alain Gest and Jacques Guyard which delivered in 1995 the Gest-Guyard report "Les sectes en France" (cults in France). The "Rapport Gest-Guyard" mentions the impossibility of a legal definition of cult and the imprecise use of the term in common language. It describes the cult problem as a very diverse phenomenon with multiple facets but lists also some practices which it considers as dangerous for individuals and/or society. It stresses the necessity of responding in proportion to the danger presented by a group and of suppressing the abuses of cultic groups while at the same time guaranteeing the freedom of conscience. It's recommendations are to get more information regarding cultic groups, to inform the general public, and to apply the existing laws, where they are violated by cultic groups. [2] unofficial translations.

The most controversial part of the report was the appendix, where a list of purported cults compiled by the general information division of the French National Police (Renseignements généraux) was reprinted. It contained 173 groups, including Jehovah's Witnesses, the Theological Institute of Nîmes (a fundamentalist Christian Bible college), and the Church of Scientology. Although this list has no statutory or regulatory value, it is at the background of the criticism directed at France with respect to freedom of religion.

Major concerns listed in these official reports and other discussions include:

the well-being of children raised in religious communities that isolate themselves from the rest of society, or, at least, ask their members to avoid social interaction with the rest of society;
child abuse, especially abusive corporal punishment or sexual abuse;
the defrauding of vulnerable members by the religious management;
suicides in doomsday cults;
the advocacy of medical practices that are generally considered unsafe, and the prohibition of some "mainstream" medical practices;
the aggressive proselytising of minors and vulnerable persons;
the hidden influence peddling of certain groups in the administration and political circles.

The government Alain Juppé created in 1996 the "Observatoire interministériel des sectes" ("interministerial board of observation of cults") which delivered yearly reports and out of which grew in 1998 the "Interministerial Mission in the Fight Against Sects/Cults" (MILS) headed by Alain Vivien, was formed in 1998 to coordinate government monitoring of sectes. In February 1998 MILS released its annual report on the monitoring of sects.

The activities of the MILS and Alain Vivien's background as the head of an anti-cult organization raised serious concerns and critiques from several human rights organizations and government bodies (see below). In 1999, Alain Vivien was put under police protection following threats and the burglary of his home (L'Humanité, January 14, 1999; [3]).

Alain Vivien resigned in June 2002 under criticism [4]. The Church of Scientology alleged that MILS under Vivien's management had wasted the taxpayer's money of trips around the world [5]. An interministerial working group was formed to determine the future parameters of the Government's monitoring of sects, called the Interministerial Monitoring Mission Against Sectarian Abuses (MIVILUDES; official site).

Headed by Jean-Louis Langlais, senior civil servant at the Ministry of the Interior, MIVILUDES was charged with observing and analyzing movements that constitute a threat to public order or that violate French law, coordinating the appropriate response, informing the public about potential risks, and helping victims to receive aid. In its announcement of the formation of MIVILUDES, the Government acknowledged that its predecessor, MILS, had been criticised for certain actions abroad that could have been perceived as contrary to religious freedom. In an interview given in March 2003, Mr. Langlais, emphasised that the issue at stake is not to fight "sects" as such but merely "deviances" these might have. However, he also admitted that it is difficult to define the concept of "deviances".

Other controversies between public institutions and minority religions

Some groups have alleged that the parliamentary reports and the controversy surrounding the About-Picard law have created an unhealthy athmosphere resulting in minority religions suffering from excessively strict, uneven or even abusive application of other laws by local authorities.

Allegations of selective applications of existing legislation

Some groups have complained that, following from the publications of those reports and the enactment of the law, they have suffered from discrimination by public authorities, private corporations and individuals. In most cases, the issue seems to have been an over-zealous and selective application of existing laws to certain groups. In the words of pastor Jean-Arnold de Clermont, president of the French Protestant Federation (FPF):

Some officials are looking more carefully and zealously at any domain that involves religion. It's not very serious and it's marginal but it's very annoying. [6]

Religious groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses have complained that some of their local groups are granted tax exemptions, while some others were not. [7]

However, some Christian leaders declared that freedom of religion was actually well protected in France. Jean-Arnold de Clermont declared:

I have no time for the idea that we live in a country that represses religious liberties. We continue to enjoy total freedom in setting up religious organizations as long as the existing legislation is known and applied.

Stéphane Lauzet, the Nîmes-based general secretary of the French Evangelical Alliance (part of the World Evangelical Fellowship), declared:

Christian groups encounter problems mostly when they misunderstand or ignore the complex technicalities of French law. Even aggressive evangelists can work without any real problems as long as they stick to the law.

Most Christian leaders agree that harassment usually occurs when local officials sanction individuals, groups, and institutions that fail to comply with tax, employment, safety, and zoning rules. But such sanctions seem unfair when other groups frequently ignore these rules without penalty.[8]

Legal decisions

On December 18, 2002, the Court of Appeal of Versailles reversed a decision by a lower court and convicted Jean-Pierre Brard – a French deputy, Journal 15-25 ans, and the director of publication of this magazine, of libelling the Jehovah's Witnesses. The court ordered that a communiqué drafted by it be published in Journal 15-25 ans as well as in a national daily paper and that the defendants pay €4,000 to the Christian Federation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The verdict related to a September 2001 report on sects published by Journal 15-25 ans, where Brard accused the Jehovah’s Witnesses of employing the same methods as international criminal organizations. In March 2003, Brard appealed the verdict to the Court of Caszation, which is the highest court in the country for such matters. [9]
On November 6, 2002, the Auch court of large claims ordered the dissolution of an organization that had been explicitly created to prevent Jehovah’s Witnesses from constructing a place of worship in Berdues. The court found that the organization’s goal was to "hinder the free exercise of religion". [10]
On October 17, 2002, the administrative court of Orléans annulled a municipal decision issued by the mayor of Sorel-Moussel, which granted him the pre-emptive right to purchase a plot of land that the local Jehovah’s Witness community had intended to buy and use for the construction of a house of worship. The court considered that the mayor had abused his right of preemption, since he exerced it without having an urbanization project prior to preemption. [11]
On June 13, 2002, the administrative court of Poitiers annulled a municipal decision issued by the mayor of La Rochelle, which refused the use of a municipal room to the Jehovah's Witnesses on grounds that the Witnesses were listed in the 1995 parliamentary report; the court ruled that, while a mayor may refuse the use of a room for a motive of public order, the motive that he used in this case was not a motive of public order. [12]
Associations of Jehovah's Witnesses have lost and won court cases regarding their tax-exempt status. See main article.

Controversy continues in France concerning alleged religious discrimination regarding the security measures that the French government has deployed for official visits of Chinese officials and for festivities organised in collaboration with China, including the exclusion of pro-Tibet and pro-Falun Gong protesters from the path of the Chinese officials [13] [14] [15]. The International Federation for Human Rights denounced the warm welcome of president Jiang Zemin in France, which it denounced as being motivated by economic prospects of trade with China [16]. Many French politicians have denounced what they considered to be an over-zealous security apparatus in those visits[17][18] Similar controversial security measures have been implemented for the visit of controversial US president George W. Bush.[19]

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