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Irreligion in France

The 21st century, beginning with the advent of the American-led War on Terror, has enlivened the debate over the issue of religious liberty, expression and atheistic rationalism in France.

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Even after the Thermidorean Reaction ended the revolutionary anti-clerical manifestations, the movement for secularization continued during the Napoleonic era and onward.

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Now known as the atheist Cult of Reason ideology, established by Jacques Hébert, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette and their supporters and intended as a replacement for Christianity, and was replete with ceremonious destruction of Christian relics, conversion of churches into Temples of Reason and the personification of Reason as a goddess; it also held such festivities as the Festival of Reason (or Festival of Liberty), dated on November 10 (20 Brumaire) 1793.

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In 1877, the Grand Orient de France (GOdF), the largest Masonic body, at the instigation of the Protestant priest Frédéric Desmons, allowed those who had no belief in a Supreme being to be admitted as members, resulting in an ongoing schism between the GOdF and the United Grand Lodge of England (and their respective affiliated lodges) due to the departure of the GOdF from the theistic requirement of belief in a Supreme Being for all members.

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The Cult of Reason was finally ended by Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety through their execution of Hébert and several of his followers on March 24, 1794 having ascended just seven months earlier.

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