The damaged roof of Notre-Dame-de Paris Cathedral in Paris in April, 2019. The 12th-century cathedral has welcomed more than 11 million visitors since its reopening last year.AMAURY BLIN/AFP/Getty Images

Earlier this month, as Christmas decorations went up across the country, France marked the 120th anniversary of its 1905 law on the separation of church and state with countless ceremonies underscoring the sanctity of la laïcité in French society.

Under the 1905 law, whose principles are enshrined in France’s 1958 Constitution, the French state neither recognizes nor subsidizes any religion. Adopted after more than a century of brutal divisions between Catholic monarchists and anticlerical Republicans in post-revolutionary France, the law’s main effect at the time was to secularize an education system that had remained under the control of the Church.

The French right never fully endorsed the concept of la laïcité – as France’s particular brand of secularism is known – as it considers the country’s Christian heritage to be a fundamental characteristic of the French identity and worthy of protection. The official reopening last year of fire-ravaged Notre-Dame de Paris – which united a who’s-who of politicians and celebrities in the celebration of a Catholic mass – reminded everyone just how much the French value their Christian traditions, if not faith, when it suits them.

Nothing symbolizes France more than the 12th-century cathedral that has welcomed more than 11 million visitors since its reopening a year ago this........

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