YOLANDE JANSENitics, often associated with a challenge to equal republican citizenship. Moreover, we also
need to deconstruct the underlying opposition between freedom andappartenance(‘‘be-
longing’’) inherited from the French Enlightenment. To develop an alternative frame, we
will need to pay systematic attention to the distribution of power and to minority-major-
ity relations and critically to rethink the relation between religion and culture in the
sociological concept of secularization that underlies the political-philosophical concept of
laı ̈cite ́.
Laı ̈cite ́as a Cultural Concept
In principle,laı ̈cite ́is a juridical-political concept institutionalizing the separation of the
republican state from religion.^2 French political philosopher Ce ́cile Laborde has said that
it does not fundamentally differ from other liberal principles when it comes to dealing
with religious diversity.^3 Since 1905, French law has separated church and state more
rigorously than do countries such as Britain, Germany, or Denmark, but this is only a
matter of degree. Moreover, contemporary French political practice, like that in other
Western countries, creates ample space for religious pluralism, as well as encouraging the
exercise of religious freedom. To give just one small example, contrary to what the law of
1905 prescribes and what received opinion thinks is still in practice, the French state does
finance private religious schools and religious associations. It has also been recognized
that the French state, despite its ideology of the strict independence of religion and state,
has a long tradition of thegestion(‘‘management’’) of religion.^4 This implies not only its
accommodation within the public sphere but also, more strongly, its centralization and
at least partial control by the state.^5
Though the concept oflaı ̈cite ́needs to be set against the backdrop of the seculariza-
tion of the French state in a centuries-long struggle with the Catholic Church, the term
was first used in the 1870s, as were its counterparts the verblaı ̈ciser(‘‘to secularize’’), and
the nounslaı ̈cisation(the action and result oflaı ̈cite ́), andlaı ̈cisme(the doctrine oflaı ̈cite ́).
Only the adjectivelaı ̈que, derived from the Greeklaos(‘‘people’’), is much older (1487; it
means ‘‘that which does not form part of the clergy’’). The meaning oflaı ̈cis very close
to that ofse ́culier, which denotes that ‘‘which belongs to thesie`cle’’ (the first meaning of
saeculumin Latin; in English, ‘‘century’’), that is, to the temporal order, themonde(the
second meaning ofsaeculumin Latin; in English, ‘‘world’’), as opposed to the religious,
atemporal order.Le Petit Robertlists the derivations oflaı ̈queandse ́culieras synonyms,
yet the grammatical equivalent oflaicite ́,secularite ́,is not recognized as a word.
It is no coincidence that the combatant hypostatic nouns of the more neutral adjec-
tive gained prominence during the struggle of the Third Republic finally to rid itself of
the Catholic heritage and of the pope’s and the aristocracy’s shared aspirations to over-
turn the results of the Revolution. After the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War
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