A row over secularism has erupted again in France after a court annulled the sacking of a nursery assistant, fired for refusing to remove her Muslim head scarf. The decision represented 'a dark day for secularism in France' said one former minister.
A Frenchman who ripped a Muslim woman's veil off her face as she strolled in a fairground was on Wednesday given a five-month suspended prison sentence and ordered to compensate his victim.
An eight-year-old boy was left for dead in a hotel carpark, after his father and aunt attempted an exorcism on him, believing he was possessed by evil spirits, a court on the outskirts of Paris heard this week.
The mayor of a sleepy village in the south east of France has apologized to inhabitants for his “lack of tact” after a statue of the Virgin Mary was placed on ‘Chemin de la Radasse' – which translates as ‘Slut Street’.
A French magazine, which sparked international protests and saw its offices firebombed after it printed cartoons mocking Muhammad, on Wednesday published a "halal" cartoon biography of Islam's founder.
France's Socialist government on Wednesday outlines a draft bill to authorise gay marriage and adoption amid strong opposition from the Roman Catholic Church and the opposition right.
French Catholics marked the Assumption holiday on Wednesday with prayers focused on the family and children that were designed to underline the Church's opposition to gay marriage.
A French Muslim woman has been charged with assault and inciting a riot after she refused a police ID check becausevshe was wearing a banned full-face veil, a police source said Tuesday.
Muslims attending morning prayers Wednesday were confronted by two pigs' heads in the entrance to their mosque in a French town where an Islamist gunman killed two paratroopers in March.
Tensions between French authorities and the country's Islamic community resurfaced on Tuesday after it emerged that four summer camp instructors had been sacked for fasting during Ramadan.
<p>France must return almost €4.6 million it seized from Jehovah's Witnesses for taxes on donations, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday.</p>
<p>Three French Jewish youths were attacked by assailants carrying hammers and iron bars in Lyon on Sunday in what the interior minister has described as an "extremely serious" anti-semitic attack.</p>
<p>A man believed to have killed his wife and four children last year considered himself to be part of an elite group of intelligent people, superior to 'the masses', newly discovered emails and writings show. </p>
<p>Fundamentalist Christians threw dog dirt in the face of a top theatre boss in Nancy on Thursday, in protest against a controversial play on religion. </p>
<p>Youssouf Fofana, the leader of a gang known as the Barbarians is suspected of posting anti-Semitic videos online. Fofana was jailed in 2009 for torturing and killing a Jewish man in the Paris suburbs.</p>
<p>French Prime Minister François Fillon has called on French Jews and Muslims to change their eating habits and scrap halal and kosher slaughter rules.</p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">French Interior Minister Claude Guéant said on Sunday he stood by remarks that not all civilisations are equal, as critics denounced his comments as dangerous and xenophobic.</span></p>
<p>Paris police have arrested around 20 Christian fundamentalists who burst into a theatre and threw stink bombs to protest against a play featuring the face of Christ drizzled with fake excrement.</p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Two members of the secretive Roman Catholic society Opus Dei were to appear in a Paris court on Thursday after a woman claimed they brainwashed her and kept her illegally as a domestic servant.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The tiny village of Bugarach in south west France should be monitored due to concerns about the activities of an apocalyptic sect, a government agency has said</span>.</p>
