France, Islam and ‘Laïcité’

“Laïcité,” or secularism, the principle that separates religion from the state in France, has long provoked heated dispute in the country. It has intensified recently, when a teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded after showing his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. We look at the roots of secularism and ask whether it works in modern, multicultural France.