The Constitutional and Procedural Aspects of the Assignment of Patron Saints in the Public Space in France
Published Online: Jun 03, 2025
Page range: 73 - 91
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/slgr-2025-0005
Keywords
© 2025 Lech Jamróz, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
A secular republic is a model of a state that recognizes the separation of public authority from church authority. This constitutional solution charac-terizes France. In the essence of the relations between the state and churches that are prevalent in France, the separation of these entities is justified by the rejection of what can divide the national community or reduce the cohesion of the nation. Case of France is very interesting and even paradoxal. The principle of secularism of the state functioning for more than a century, and has been supplemented over time by the principle of neutrality of the public service. However, France respects the hundreds of years of its historical legacy and tra-dition in which religion (Catholicism) has a prominent place. It is manifested in the very numerous public places referring to patron saints. The paper provides an explanation of this complicated issue. In addition to constitutional issues, the article discusses the procedural aspects of assignment public places the names of patron saints. The dominant method of analysis is the dogmatic-legal method.