The French Catholic church appears to be in terminal decline, based upon statistics produced for a leading religious magazine, Le Monde des Religions. Only 51% of the population admit to being Catholics. In 1991 80% of the population were self-declared Catholics. Only four years ago, 62% said they were Catholic, showing that the subsequent annual percentage fall had increased to nearly 3%. At that rate, in theory French Catholicism could be defunct by the year 2025.

The magazine’s editor, Frédéric Lenoir, said that ‘In its institutions and in its way of thinking, France is no longer a Catholic country’. His poll reinforced this dramatically. In the last twelve years, the number of atheists has risen sharply, from 23 per cent to 31 per cent, nearly one-third of the population. Of the 51% still professing to be Catholics, half described this as merely a family tradition, and confessed that they did not actually believe in God. Most people attended church only for christenings. Only 10 per cent went regularly to Sunday mass and younger people scarcely went to church at all.

It was not the French Revolution that most damaged Catholicism but the decision made by the French government in 1905 to withdraw funding for religious groups and to declare religious buildings the property of the state. 

The latest statistics on births and marriages reinforce the decline of Catholicism. One French marriage in two ends in divorce. In a typical Parisian school for Catholic children, four-fifths of the parents in one class are divorced; the national divorce rate has doubled in 25 years. Half the children in France are born out of wedlock in defiance of Catholic doctrine. Perhaps worse, from the perspective of the church, is that most babies of unmarried mothers are not uncomfortable accidents but planned through birth control, and born to couples who see no reason to get married. Ségolène Royal, the socialist candidate for the presidency, is the most conspicuous role model, having had four children out of wedlock with the same partner.

France now has the highest fertility rate, higher even than Ireland, in the European Community, with an average of two children born last year to women of child-bearing age. The British figure, for comparison, is just 1.66. It reflects the generous state provision given to French working mothers, including publicly funded crèches for every child below the age of three. By the end of the century, France could have a population of 75 million if the present birth rate is sustained.

However, none of these statistics has diluted the traditional level of French pessimism about the future, as recorded in public opinion polls. The French see their way of life threatened by a growing European Community, immigration, taxes, globalization and climate change.