Chapter 8 - La République Laïque vs. La France Catholique

Summary

Chapter 8 moves on to the French case study. As the nation with the oldest major right-wing populist party in Europe, a well-established electoral constituency of political Catholicism, and one of the strictest models of church–state separation, the French case study provides a unique opportunity to trace the historical development of the relationship between religion and right-wing populism. To study these phenomena, Chapter 8 begins by exploring how the historical antagonism between la France Catholique and la Republique laïque still shapes the relationship between politics and religion today, and how the hard-fought compromise between the two has recently been challenged by a return of political tensions surrounding religion and laïcité, in the context of the French far right’s identitarian rhetoric.