Laïcité, which historically upheld individual freedom, denies minority rights today, as seen in the ban on French athletes wearing hijabs at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Students attend a class at the Averroès school in Lille, France, in September 2023.
Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images
Some of the measures the French government has taken to fight radicalization can do the opposite, three social scientists argue.
L'archevêque de Canterbury Justin Welby place la couronne de Saint Édouard sur la tête du roi Charles III de Grande-Bretagne lors de la cérémonie de couronnement à l'intérieur de l'abbaye de Westminster, dans le centre de Londres, le 6 mai 2023.
Victoria Jones/AFP
On several counts, England is now on its way to becoming a secularist society. Nevertheless, there remain cultural differences that prevent it from embracing the French principle of “laïcité”.
Residents watch French air force jets fly over a Paris suburb during the Bastille Day military parade on July 14, 2023.
AP Photo/Youcef Bounab
Catholicism, ‘Frenchness’ and secularism are often conflated in French culture, a scholar writes, while non-Christian traditions are viewed with suspicion.
Why are Emmanuel Macron’s reform plans so controversial and why are people protesting about freedom after another spate of violent attacks?
An homage to Samuel Paty, a teacher murdered after showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Oct. 18, 2020.
Adnan Farzat/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Macron wants to ‘build an Islam in France that can be compatible with the Enlightenment.’ But that goal assumes France is compatible with Islam, says a Muslim scholar of religion and politics.
Hommage to Samuel Paty: “Thank you Mr. Paty to have taught us history and freedom of expression.”
Bertrand Guay/AFP
The horrific death of Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher, highlights the importance of the work of educators who are, more than ever, on the front lines of the fight for freedom of expression.
A Senegalese nun prays during a service at the St. Peters church in Dakar, Senegal.
EPA/Nic Bothma
Neither French nor American, Senegalese secularism stands midway between these two models
Honouring religious freedom and behaving faithfully in public not only protect the rights of individuals but also safeguard the integrity of democratic governments.
Peter Hershey/Unsplash