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The history of secularism in France is the birth and development of this principle up to the present day.
Secularism first took shape in France during the French Revolution: the abolition of the Ancien Régime in August 1789 was accompanied by the end of ecclesiastical privileges, the reaffirmation of universal principles, including freedom of conscience, and the limitation of religious freedoms expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
In the 19th century, secularization laws gradually freed the State from its historical ties with the Catholic Church and created new political and social norms based on the principle of republican universalism. This process, part of a broader movement associated with modernity, entrusted the sovereign populace with the redefinition of political and social foundations—such as legislative power, civil rites, and the evolution of law and morality—independently of any religious dogma.
To support this principle and reduce Catholic resistance to it, the Third Republic nationalized education and healthcare activities that had not previously been handled by the state. This revolutionized the organization of hospitals and the school system. For the latter, the Jules Ferry laws secularized education, which had been public and compulsory since 1833. This period was marked by an educational war between the Republic and the Church. The Republic expelled the Jesuits from France, followed by all other teaching congregations in 1903. In 1904, it prohibited religious from teaching, a ban that was only lifted in 1940 by the Vichy regime. Passed in 1905, the law separating Church and State, which marked the culmination of an assertive secularization process, nationalized Church property for a second time, and prohibited the State from subsidizing any religious denomination.
Since Bonaparte's Civil Code, which defined divorce for the first time, the State has legislated and used secularism to devise new rules of law for the family and the individual. With the French Constitution of 1958, secularism became the foundation of the republican pact, guaranteeing national uniformity.
Under the terms of the Declaration of 1789, which forms part of today's constitutional bloc, religious freedom is limited by the public order defined by law. Movements that do not adhere to this public order are typically classified as sects. Such movements can be entirely banned under the About-Picard law. However, despite this legislation, there is no consensus on the legal criteria for condemning an entire movement, aside from the crimes or misdemeanors committed by its members.