The withdrawal of the “Savary Law” in 1984 put an end to the “School war”, which opposed for decades secular movements and religious groups, mainly catholic ones. The former were proponents of a unified public education, the latter wanted to maintain private confessional schools. In 1984, the Fench population was mainly in favour of confessional schools and the strong mobilisation of Catholics discouraged the government from closing religious schools. Tensions between secular movements and religious groups restarted in 1989 with the emergence of the “veil affair”, which raised once again the question of religion in schools. The debate led to the 2004 law, which prohibits wearing of religious conspicuous signs in public schools.
The contribution aims at understanding the evolution of relationships between State and religions, concerning educational issues and to analyse arguments of State, secular and religious movements on those debates.
