I would suggest you to read the following:
France[edit]
Laïcité, a product of French history and philosophy, was formalized in a 1905 law providing for the separation of church and state, that is, the separation of religion from political power.
The French version of separation is called laïcité. This model of a secularist state protects the religious institutions from state interference, but with public religious expression also to some extent limited. This aims to protect the public power from the influences of religious institutions, especially in public office. Religious views which contain no idea of public responsibility, or which consider religious opinion irrelevant to politics, are less impinged upon by this type of secularization of public discourse.
Former President Nicolas Sarkozy criticised "negative laicite" and talked about a "positive laicite" that recognizes the contribution of faith to French culture, history and society, allows for faith in the public discourse and for government subsidies for faith-based groups.[31] He visited the Pope in December 2007 and publicly emphasized France's Christian roots, while highlighting the importance of freedom of thought,[32] advocating that faith should come back into the public sphere.François Hollande took a very different position during the 2012 presidential election, promising to insert the concept of laïcité into the constitution (the French constitution already says that the French Republic is "laïque" but there is no article of the constitution about laïcité).[33]
Nevertheless, there are certain entanglements in France which include:
The most significant example consists in two areas, Alsace and Moselle (see here for further detail), where the Concordat between France and the Holy See still prevails because the area was under German control when the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State was passed. Catholic priests as well as the clergy of three other religions (Lutheran, Calvinist, and Jewish) are paid by the state, and schools have religion courses. Moreover, the Catholic bishops of Metz and Strasburg are named (or rather, formally appointed) by the French Head of State on proposition of the Pope, which interestingly makes the French President the only temporal power in the world to formally have retained the right to appoint Catholic bishops, all other catholic bishops being appointed by the Pope.
The French President is ex officio a co-prince of Andorra, where Roman Catholicism has a status of state religion (the other co-prince being a Spanish bishop). Moreover, French heads of states are traditionally offered an honorary title of Canon of the Papal Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, Cathedral of Rome. Once this honour has been awarded to a newly elected president, France pays for a choir vicar, a priest who occupies the seat in the canonial chapter of the Cathedral in lieu of the president (all French presidents have been male and at least formally Roman Catholic, but if one were not, this honour could most probably not be awarded to him or her.) The French President also holds a seat in a few other canonial chapters in France.
Another example of the complex ties between France and the Catholic Church consists in the Pieux Établissements de la France à Rome et à Lorette: five churches in Rome (Trinità dei Monti, St. Louis of the French, St. Ivo of the Bretons, St. Claude of the Free County of Burgundy, and St. Nicholas of the Lorrains) as well as a chapel in Loreto belong to France, and are administered and paid for by a special foundation linked to the French embassy to the Holy See.
In Wallis and Futuna, a French overseas territory, national education is conceded to the diocese, which gets paid for it by the State.
Separation of church and state - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Regards
