Religion In France

France has long embraced religious freedom, first granted in the "French  Declaration of the Right of Man and Citizen" in 1789. This right was reaffirmed in the 1905 "Law  of Separation" that explicitly separated church and state. Also, at the end of WWII France and the US drafted the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights which includes the right to religious freedom.  

 

However, France regulates religious activities to protect the rights of others placing the welfare  of the state above religion. Dominique Decherf states in "French Views of Religious Freedom"  

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In France, the government regulates religious activities in all of their dimensions-worship, observance, practice, and teaching-in order to protect the rights of others, the public order, health, and morals. This regulatory oversight applies not just to religious organizations, but to any  kind of organized group in France. In regulating religious activities, however, the state does not make religious interpretations. It does not define religion, as the state is incompetent in matters of belief. But the state also does not make exceptions to general laws and regulations on religious grounds. US courts may interpret laws more flexibly when a strong religious motivation is at stake-permission   to use a hallucinogenic substance in Native American rituals, for example - a policy that has created controversy within the United States over the past decade.