Tags: France
Only secular law can bring justice to victims of mass clerical abuse in France
Posted: Thu, 07 Oct 2021 by Keith Porteous Wood
Keith Porteous Wood says France's deference to the Catholic Church has obstructed justice for hundreds of thousands of abuse victims. Read More »
The Cardinal Barbarin case highlights the need for well-drafted mandatory reporting laws
Posted: Thu, 06 Feb 2020 by Keith Porteous Wood
The conviction of France's most senior Catholic cleric for failing to report child abuse has been overturned. Keith Porteous Wood says this should be a warning to those charged with responding to abuse in the UK. Read More »
Schools and segregation: a lesson from France
Posted: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 by Keith Sharpe
The Government is preparing to extend religious selection in faith schools. Keith Sharpe contrasts its willingness to cause greater segregation with French efforts to encourage integration in the wake of terror attacks.
For secularists interested in education... Read More »
Living better together: French secularism risks being destroyed by political ambition
Posted: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 by Terry Sanderson
Despite occasional conflicts, France's tradition of secularism has served both social cohesion and religious freedom well. Terry Sanderson argues that misusing secularism for political aims risks undermining both.
The French ban on so-called burkinis –... Read More »
National occasions need not be dominated by religion – as France’s commemoration ceremony so poignantly demonstrated
Posted: Tue, 01 Dec 2015 by Keith Porteous Wood
France's recent ceremony for those killed in the Paris attacks was a moving demonstration that religiously neutral ceremonies are a powerful way to unite people regardless of faith or politics; it is something the UK could emulate for our own public ceremonies,... Read More »
French challenge to exception of Alsace Moselle from separation law fails
Posted: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 by Catherine Le Fur
By Catherine Le Fur
A challenge to the exception of Alsace-Moselle from the 1905 French law that separates church and state has failed.
A previously unknown secularist group appealed to the Constitutional Council (a body dedicated to validating the constitutionality... Read More »
French confrontation of church and state over gay marriage
Posted: Thu, 13 Dec 2012 by Catherine Le Fur
By Catherine Le Fur
The Law Commission of the French parliament held a hearing on 29 November to listen to representations from six religious leaders (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Orthodox and Buddhist) on the Government's plans to legalise same-sex... Read More »
