The importance of religion

In April 2005, SOFRES (French public opinion poll institute) conducted a telephone survey for EURO-RSCG (France’s leading advertising brand) on a national cross-section of people aged 18 and over in 10 European countries (Germany, Spain, Finland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, United Kingdom).
One of the questions dealt with religion: “Tell me if the following sentence corresponds a lot, a little, not really or not at all to what you think. Religion is important in my life.”
A majority of Europeans (58%) say religion is important in their lives, the results, however, are very different from country to country.
The Poles are in front, with 80% of people stating that religion is important in their lives, followed by the Italians (75%) and the Portuguese (72%).
Conversely, 66% of Czechs and 60 % of those living in the United Kingdom claim that religion is not important in their lives.
In France and in the Netherlands, more than half the people state that religion is not important in their lives (54%), while religion is considered important by a small majority in Spain (60%), Germany (56%) and Finland (53%).

Source: SOFRES poll on values in Europe.