Laicitatea în Fața Provocărilor Globalizării. Stat și Culte în Franța
The Secularity in the Face of the Challenges of Globalisation. State and Cults in France

Summary/Abstract: This study deals with the issue of the French State – Church relations, an issue that cannot be understood without taking into account France's historical evolution. French secularism (la laïcité) means a clear separation between the state and religious institutions and involves considering religion as belonging to the strictly private sphere. Although legally codified by the 1905, Separation of Church and State Act and the Constitution of the French Republic, French secularism remains a difficult concept to define, with many developments and variations in its application. The attitude of the French State towards the Churches has changed in time, from a combative, anti-religious secularism (at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century), to an appeased, positive secularism, in the 20th century. This secularism became militant again nowadays, under the pressure of the rapid development of Islamic fundamentalism on French soil. Another challenge brought about by globalization, which France has to face, is determined by the competition of French universalism with American multiculturalism which tends to become predominant in the Western world, a competition which manifests itself also in the field of State-Church relations.

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