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Values Survey 2018

The results for France of the 2018 European Values Study are analysed in a recent book, part of which is devoted to religious issues.
This survey confirms the considerable decrease in Catholicism membership in France. This trend, visible in all studies and surveys, is clearly confirmed by comparing the results of the first values survey in 1981, when the membership rate was 70%, with those of 2018, when it is only 32%.
Two other trends, which were discernible, are established by this analysis.
Firstly, the importance of the number of people declaring themselves "without religion", who constituted 58% of respondents in 2018. This group is still poorly known, bringing together people who are convinced or even militant of atheism with more indifferent individuals, or others who believe in God (25% of those without religions say so) but distance themselves from religious institutions.
Also, the number of people belonging to minority religious groups is increasing. 3% of respondents said they belonged to a religious minority in 1981; they are 10% in 2018. These minorities include mainly Muslims (6%) but also Protestants (2%), of whom those from evangelical backgrounds now constitute the majority.

Source : Claude Dargent et Olivier Galland, « La religion en mouvement », in Pierre Bréchon, Frédéric Gonthier, Sandrine Astor (dir.), La France des valeurs. Quarante ans d’évolutions, Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 2019, 6ème partie, p.221-251.
EVS results for France

D 9 June 2019   

CNRS Unistra Dres Gsrl

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