Freethinkers in France will remember fondly the Easter weekend of 2008 for many years. On the allegedly Good Friday of 21 March about 50 banquets were organised by Freethinkers. This is a tradition that goes back to a grand anti-religious banquet organised in 1868 in Paris, at the behest of Sainte-Beuve, Ernest Renan, Prince Napoleon and other republicans of the time: it was to break a religious taboo as on this day it was traditionally forbidden to eat ‘flesh meat’.

Following the announcement that Pope Benedict XVI plans to visit France, the French member organizations of IHEU have reaffirmed the principles of secularism. The Pope's visit is planned for the end of May 2008, at the invitation of the Bishops’ Conference of France. The visit is aimed at "celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Bernadette Soubirous in the cave of Lourdes".

IHEU member organization Libre Pensée has condemned the decision of the Council of Europe to reject Guy Langagne’s report on the dangers of creationism in education, and has demanded that the report be placed on the agenda for the next meeting of the Council’s parliamentary assembly.

The second issue of the annual French language version of International Humanist News has been published. The magazine addresses the growing need for Humanist literature in francophone countries and aims to build a direct bridge between Humanists in those countries and the IHEU. The magazine is available to download from this web site.

Le deuxième numéro des Informations Humanistes Internationales vient de paraitre. Le revue satisfera le besoin croissant pour la littérature humaniste dans de divers pays francophones et etablira un lien direct entre les humanistes et libre penseurs dans ces pays et l'IHEU. Le revue est disponible pour télécharger depuis ce site internet.

French Estates General for Laïcité Makes an Appeal

One year after IHEU’s French Member Organisation the Libre Pensée Française convened a massive demonstration in defence of laïcité in Paris (IHEU was represented by Babu Gogineni), on 9 Dec 2006 the Libre Pensée Française convened an Estates General for Laïcité to examine the state of laïcité in the country.

“I would like to commend you on the important work accomplished in France during 2006 and on the creation of the secular inventories. In fact, apart from the purely French aspects like reference to the inventories made in
1906, or to the law of 1905, the contents of this campaign have an international dimension.

IHEU member organization Libre Penséé has issued a statement on the Berlin Declaration, which was signed on 25 March 2007 by Hans-Gert Pöttering as President of the European Parliament, Angela Merkel as President of the Council of the European Union (and the European Council) and José Manuel Durão Barroso as President of the European Commission.

SYMPOSIUM 1848-2008 – 22, 23 and 24 March 2008 – Sorbonne, Paris

2008 marks the 160th anniversary of the 1848 Revolution, as well as that of the birth of the first free- thinking circles.

1848 is an important year in French history – it marked the end of the monarchy in France, the abolition of slavery, the establishment of universal male franchise and the assertion of the right to work, among others. It was also a year of bloody confrontation between the two Republics: the “Marianne” and the “Sociale”.

On the initiative of IHEU member organization Libre Pensée, a meeting of the Estates General for Secularism was convened in Paris on 9 December 2006. The Estates General discovered that over €10m a year is being diverted from public funds to the churches, in contravention of the 1905 French law of separation of church and state.

“The Republic does not recognize, does not salary nor subsidize any religion” (Article 2 of the Law of 9 December 1905)