1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State

The 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State is a foundational statute of the French Third Republic that established the principle of laicite, the strict separation of religious institutions from the state, as a governing rule of French public life. It ended state recognition, funding and salaries for the clergy of any religion, a practice that had continued since the Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon Bonaparte and the Papacy, and it declared that the Republic neither recognizes, funds nor subsidizes any religious denomination. Ownership of church buildings built before the law passed to the state or local communes, which were required to make them available for continued religious use, and religious congregations were required to organize as associations to manage their property and activities. The law did not apply in the region of Alsace-Moselle, which was under German administration in 1905 and did not return to France until after the First World War, so the earlier Concordat regime still applies there today; elsewhere, the 1905 law remains the basic legal framework governing the relationship between the French state and religion.