France's Evangelical Movement Hindered by Bureaucratic System

In France, a predominately Catholic country, evangelical churches and Protestants are encountering growing difficulties to present their voice and confirm their positions in the secularised society.

Despite of the strong Christian roots of France in history, nowadays only 10 percent of the population attend weekend religious services. Compared to the majority of Catholics and 10 percent Muslims in the country, Protestants only make up 2.2 percent of the total population.

However, the number of Protestants has grown by some 10 percent over the past 15 years, according to a recent census. This growth comes mostly from evangelical churches, including Baptist, Pentecostal and numerous independent denominations. Evangelical churches in France are being considered as part of a growing Christian movement worldwide and should not be overlooked.

According to Crosswalk News, the President of the French Protestant Federation (FPF) Jean-Arnold de Clermont, said that because of France's Catholic traditions, public officials consider legitimate only those religions which have a recognised head, like a bishop, and a recognised service, like the Mass. The comparatively small evangelical or Protestant groups, which differ from the traditional pattern, are regarded as sects and are usually marginalised.

De Clermont cited some of the recent incidents that have hindered the evangelicals’ activities because of bureaucracy. A Haitian Evangelical congregation in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis decided to buy the warehouse it had been renting for church services over the past 12 years. City officials refused to approve the sale, claiming that the building didn't have adequate parking facilities.

To explain this unfair case, De Clermont said that the city officials had related Haitians with American Southern Baptists, and drew a parallel to religious conservatives and to President Bush.

In fact, last year in a French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, a cover story with a picture of Bush and the headline "Evangelicals - the sect that wants to conquer the world" outraged French Protestants. The article criticised that evangelical churches are used as a political tool in the United States. The magazine apologised after protests by the FPF and French Evangelical Alliance (AEF).

In another case, officials in a Paris suburb refused to renew the tax exemption status of an Evangelical Lutheran organisation. The issue was finally resolved after FPF took the protest to the French Prime Minister who listened with great sympathy.

At a recent meeting of religious leaders called by the Ministry of the Interior to discuss anti-Semitism, a Reformed Church pastor discovered that he was the sole representative of the Protestant faith, attending along with a Catholic bishop, a Muslim cleric and a Jewish rabbi. He had to inform the officials that they should also have considered inviting Lutheran, evangelicals and other Protestant representatives to participate in the discussions.

Nevertheless, de Clermont denied that the religious freedom in France was being breached, "Liberty of religion is intact but it is true that the ignorance of some public officials has often placed us in difficult situations."

De Clermont attributed all these cases to the widespread secularism in France. The debate over this topic has been further enraged by a law banning Islamic headscarves and other religious symbols from schools that went into effect in France last September.

FPF said it must frequently intervene to protest against official actions that could be considered attacks on religious freedom but were more likely the result of ignorance.

In addition the FPF is often called upon to explain the specifics of the widely diverse Protestant movement to government authorities.