Control the uncontrollable: French secularism and ‘religious risk’

This contribution examines the French cult controversy in the late twentieth century through the theoretical framework of the ‘risk society’. While the sociological concept of ‘risk’ has often been applied to issues such as nuclear energy and environmental degradation, it also offers a relevant framework for analysing the concept of religion. In the context of the ‘second modernity’, characterised by increased uncertainty, religion may be simultaneously reinterpreted as an axiological resource and an ontological risk. The case of the French cult controversy, culminating in 2001 with the About-Picard Law that strengthened the legal regulation of so-called ‘sectes’, reveals how fears surrounding ‘religious risk’ gained traction in public discourse. By tracing the processes through which this fear expanded, I argue that such risk-conscious interpretations of religion have contributed to a transformation of French secularism (laïcité), shifting it from a liberal to a more authoritarian model. At the same time, the co-making processes of religion (as risk) and secularism (as control) illustrate the paradox inherent in risk management: efforts to control one form of risk (‘cults’) may generate new risks, such as the erosion of religious freedom, a core value of the secular state.