The Specificities of Relations between the State, Religious Communities and Civil Society in France

International audienceAfter a brief history of French civil society and its relationship with the State and the Church, highlighting the main similarities and differences with other European countries, the landscape of French civil society and religious communities nowadays is sketched out, while their relationships with the State are presented according to their components. Finally, the chapter focuses on the most conflictual part of French civil society, namely education, which has been the sources of a recurrent “school war” between the Church and the State. The conclusion notes that France is now a welfare partnership country as its Continental neighbours, even if relationships with religious communities are less developed