ABSTRACT
In a given society, in order to pinpoint the truly significant normative conflicts, an effort must be made to identify those that call into question the definition that the society gives of itself. In other words, conflicts that influence the construction of collective identity, the management of memory, and the definition of the foundations on which social cohesion is, or should be, based. This chapter demonstrates that the question is at the center of the mediating processes through which the normative conflicts giving rise to the redefinition of laicite are capable-under certain conditions—of contributing to the formation of a common identity in today's multicultural France. The modern construction of laicite, which culminated with the Separation Law in 1905, is contained, in embryonic form, in this first setting down of the relation between the Church and the State. After a laicite of confrontation, the post-World War II climate gave rise to a new period: that of a laicite of compromise.
