Rita Hermon-Belot, historian, Emeritus Director of Studies at EHESS (CESPRA), specialist in the history of religious plurality in France.
Many citizens express a form of "disarray" when confronted with questions relating to religious expression in everyday life and at work. Given the impossibility of relying on a stable, indisputable definition of laïcité, we need to circumscribe this idea as precisely as possible. Far from the media hype surrounding secularism, or the readings that make it a merciless marker of French cleavages, it seems essential to look back at the historical genesis of pluralism and religious tensions, which contributed to the gradual emergence of the idea of tolerance and then secularism in France. By approaching all these issues from the angle of plurality and diversity, we can offer a rigorous, dispassionate account of the problems posed by religious and convictional expressions, and in turn, the problems posed by the latter to the idea of secularism.
Free
Many citizens express a form of "disarray" when confronted with questions relating to religious expression in everyday life and at work. Given the impossibility of relying on a stable, indisputable definition of laïcité, we need to circumscribe this idea as precisely as possible. Far from the media hype surrounding secularism, or the readings that make it a merciless marker of French cleavages, it seems essential to look back at the historical genesis of pluralism and religious tensions, which contributed to the gradual emergence of the idea of tolerance and then secularism in France. By approaching all these issues from the angle of plurality and diversity, we can offer a rigorous, dispassionate account of the problems posed by religious and convictional expressions, and in turn, the problems posed by the latter to the idea of secularism.
Free