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Evolving religious configurations

French religious configurations have been undergoing a significant change since the 1970s. The European Values Survey shows a decline in religious affiliation with numbers falling from 73.7% to 50.5% in 2008.

	1981	1990	1999	2008
Religious belonging	73,7	61,5	57,5	50,5
No religious belonging	26,3	38,5	42,5	49,5

The European Values Survey also observes a decline in the demographic statistics of the Catholic Church which was traditionally predominant in France. This diminution is accompanied by the increasing number of those without religious affiliations and a redistribution of affiliations in favour of Islam in particular, Protestantism (especially Evangelicalism) and Buddhism.

	1981	1990	1999	2008
Catholic	95,6	94,0	91,8	85,7
Protestant	1,3	2,1	2,4	3,5
Jew	1,4	0,2	2,4	0,8
Orthodox	0,0	0,0	1,9	1,9
Buddhist	0,0	0,7	0,4	0,2
Muslim	0,6	1,6	0,2	7,4
Hindu	0,0	0,2	0,2	0,2
Other	1,2	1,3	0,7	1,0
Total	100%	100%	100%	100%

In 2008, the question which religious denomination do you belong to? provides the following numbers:

	% of answers	% of valid answers
Roman Catholic	43,0	85,7
Muslim	3,7	7,4
Protestant	1,8	3,5
Jew	0,4	0,8
Buddhist	0,4	0,7
Orthodox	0,4	0,7
Hindu	0,1	0,2
Jehova’s Witness	0,2	0,5
Other	0,3	0,6
NA	49,9	-
Total	100	100

D 9 June 2016 AAnne-Laure Zwilling