(OPINION) ETH – A new bill that was passed by the French State may have just posed a real threat to freedom of religion. Although this bill’s framers hope to protect French society from further violence by Islamic radicals it reportedly targets all religious groups and not just Islamic extremists who have been responsible for numerous attacks on Christians and others in recent months and years.
According to Faithwire, “The wind has changed in France,” Clément Diedrichs, general director of the National Council of Evangelicals in France (CNEF) which represents half of the French protestants, told Christianity Today (CT). The government has “clearly indicated that we’re no longer in a Christian society.” “Religion has become expendable,” he noted, saying that the country’s leadership no longer has any desire to protect space for any faith.
This proposed law is said to also target the financing of missionary outreaches from abroad by limiting overseas funding of church planting and building in France, and would also “increase government surveillance of pastors’ teaching and increase religious leaders’ legal liability, proposing steep sanctions for speech deemed to encourage disrespect of laws.”
Consequently, there have been no known reports of violent attacks carried out by Christians or their pastors against non-Christians in France despite this proposed law bundling all religious believers – whether they embrace a violent ideology or not – together in one basket.
“We’re shifting from a separation of church and state based on liberty to a separation based on control,” said François Clavairoly, president of the Protestant Federation of France (FPF), which includes both evangelicals and Lutheran Reformed groups. This bill was proposed after a series of violent attacks have been carried out across France last year including the public beheading of a middle school teacher who showed caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed to his class as they discussed freedom of speech.
