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The Church of France is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and curia in Rome. There are an estimated 45 million baptised Catholics in France, (77% of the population), in 98 dioceses, served by 23,000 priests. However, according to a 2003 poll, the numbers of believing and practicing Catholics are much lower. According to Froese (2001), 54% of the French are atheist or agnostic.
History, legal status and politics Prior to the French revolution, the Catholic Church had been the official state religion of France since the conversion to Christianity of Clovis I, leading to France being called "the eldest daughter of the Church." The Kings of France were known as the "very Christian kings." Catholics waged war on the Protestants during the Wars of Religion in the 16th century, until the 1598 Edict of Nantes established freedom of religion. Following from the Revolution, freedom of religion was established. Napoleon Bonaparte established the 1801 Concordat, whereby the State would subsidize the Catholic religion (recognized as the one of the majority of the French), as well as Judaism, and the Lutheran and Calvinist branches of Protestantism. However, after the 1814 Bourbon Restoration, the ultra-royalist government headed by the comte de Villèle voted the 1825 Anti-Sacrilege Act, which condemned by capital punishment any stealing of consecrated hosts, thus favorizing Catholicism over other religions. The law was repealed in the first months of the July Monarchy (1830-1848). Growing discontent with respect to the influence of the Catholic Church in education and politics lead to a series of reforms during the Third Republic reducing this influence, under the protests of the Ultramontanists whom supported the Vatican's influence. Anti-clericalism was popular among Republicans, Radicals and Socialists, in part because the Church had supported the Counterrevolutionaries through-out the 19th century. After the 16 May 1877 crisis and the fall of the Ordre Moral government lead by Marshall MacMahon, the Republicans voted Jules Ferry's 1880 laws on free education (1881) and mandatory and laic education (1882), which enraged the Catholics. Pope Leo XIII's 1891 Rerum Novarum encyclic finally pushed recalcitrant Catholics, such as Albert de Mun, to "rally" to the Republic. However, the papal encyclic has always been questioned by some Catholics, including those members of the Action française reactionary movement. Roughly divided into a left-wing which supported liberalism and republicanism, freedom of thought, and defended Captain Dreyfus, and a right-wing which supported ultra-montanism and struggled for a hypothetical "Restoration" of the Ancien Régime, France in the end of the nineteenth century bitterly opposed itself on secularism laws. Thus, the 1905 law on the separation of church and state removed the special status of the four state religions(although by the Briand-Ceretti agreement the state subsequently regained a role in the procedure for nominating bishops),except in Alsace-Moselle at the time part of Germany) but left to them the use without fee of the churches that they used prior to 1905. However, Emile Combes (a Radical) enforced these laws with strict severity, leading to some clashes between the Congregationists and the authorities. Anti-clericalism slowly declined among the French left-wing through-out the 20th century while the question of religion and of freedom of thought seemed to have been resolved. However, it is still present as a defining trait of the left-wing, while most right-wing Frenchmen self-identify as Catholics (although not necessarily practicing Catholics). Thus, the draft laws presented by François Mitterrand's government in the early 1980s, concerning restrictions on the fundings of private (and in majority Catholic) schools, were countered by right-wing demonstrations (in itself uncommon!) headed by Jacques Chirac, current conservative president of France. In the same way, the 2004 law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools, revived the controversy twenty years later, although the dividing lines also passed through each political side due to the complex matter of the subject. On this occasion, several Muslim associations have allied themselves with conservative Catholics to reject the law, while one of the consequences of the law was for Muslim college students whom refused to take out their veil or "conspicuous religious symbols" to drop the free, laic, public school system in favor of the private, Catholic schools (where the law isn't applied, being restricted to the public education system). In any cases, since the 1905 law on the separation of the Church and State, the prevailing public doctrine on religion is laïcité – that is, neutrality of the state with respect to religious doctrine, and isolation of the religious and the public spheres. This state neutrality is conceived as a protection of religious minorities as well as the uphelding of freedom of thought, which includes agnosticism and atheism. Although many Catholics were at first opposed to this secular movement, a lot of them have since changed opinions, claiming that this neutrality actually protected their faith from political interferences which would damage it. However, some traditionalist Catholic groups, such as the Society of St. Pius X, push for the return to the Ancien Régime or at least pre-separation situation, contending that France has forgotten its divine mission as a Christian country (an argument already upheld by the Ultras presenting the 1825 Anti-Sacrilege Act). Divisions
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