Abstract The French secularism knew a dramatic change during the last thirty years. The law of December 9th, 1905 had established a liberal secularism. This model contained a double face. Firstly, it established a separation between the State and the churches: the Government could not either recognize them, or subsidize them. Secondly, it granted to the religions a complete freedom of organization and communication. During these last decades, the secularism recomposed itself. The State established, on one hand, new devices of financial and symbolic recognition; it established, on the other hand, new measures of control of the churches and attempted to neutralize religious expressions in the public sphere. We speak here of a “substantialist turning point”: the Government seems indeed to set up itself as the promoter of a heavy social ethics, related to what some political leaders call the “French identity”. This contribution intends to analyze this transformation by exploring three phenomena: the transformation of the religious landscapes, the evolution of the political speeches, the reshaping of the legal rules.

Résumé La laïcité française a connu un tournant au cours des trente dernières années. La loi du 9 décembre 1905 avait établi une laïcité libérale. Ce modèle comportait une double face. D’abord, il établissait une séparation entre l’Etat et les cultes: le pouvoir ne pouvait désormais ni les reconnaître, ni les subventionner. Ensuite, il accordait aux religions une complète liberté d’organisation et de communication. Or, au cours de ces dernières décennies, la laïcité s’est reconfigurée. L’Etat a établi, d’une part, des dispositifs de reconnaissance inédits sur le terrain financier et symbolique; il a, d’autre part, introduit des mesures inédites de surveillance des cultes et de neutralisation de l’expression religieuse. On parle ici d’un « tournant substantialiste »: le gouvernement semble bien en effet vouloir s’ériger en garant d’une éthique sociale lourde, correspondant à ce que certains acteurs politiques et certains intellectuels nomment, depuis les années 1980, l’ « identité française ». Cette contribution entend analyser cette mutation en s’arrêtant sur l’enchaînement de trois phénomènes: la transformation des paysages religieux, l’évolution des discours politiques, la transformation des règles juridiques.

Neste artigo, o autor analisa os regimes de regulação estatal das religiões na Europa Ocidental. No regime de confessionalidade do Estado, frequentemente adotado por países de tradição religiosa luterana e de cristianismo ortodoxo, opta-se pela assunção de uma religião oficial beneficiária de políticas públicas e arranjos simbólicos. Por outro lado, os regimes de separação constituem arranjos de demarcação mais rígidos ou mais flexíveis das fronteiras de atuação dos Estados e das religiões. Os modelos francês e alemão consistem em exemplos desses arranjos, respectivamente. O autor considera que atualmente se verifica um movimento duplo de desconfessionalização em alguns países e de reassociação em outros, que produziria uma certa homogeneidade em direção a um sistema europeu de regulação da crença, caracterizado por uma posição mediana entre o separatismo rígido e o confessionalismo não-igualitário, tendencialmente ancorado num regime de separação flexível.

In this article, the author examines the systems of state regulation of religion in Western Europe. In the confessional system of the state, often adopted by countries of Lutheran religious tradition and orthodox Christianity, the option is to assume an official religion beneficiary of public policies and symbolic arrangements. On the other hand, the separation regimes consists of arrangements of demarcation more rigid or more flexible of the boundaries of performance between states and religions. The French and the German models are examples of these arrangements, respectively. The author considers that currently there is a double movement of de-confessionalization in some countries and in other re-association, which would produce a certain homogeneity towards a European system of regulation of belief, characterized by a middle position between the rigid separatism and the confessionalism non-egalitarian, manily anchored in a flexible regime of separation.