oa The Role of Religious Studies in French Secondary Education

Despite the fact that there is no religious education in public secondary schools in France, there is a twenty-year-old public debate on the lack of religious knowledge among pupils and the need to provide them with more information to help them understand their cultural heritage and the multireligious societies they live in. What is the context of laïcité at school? What are the issues in religious education? How are religions taught? What is the place of religious studies at university and is it useful in teacher training? What are the practical difficulties of such teaching?