Secular Associations as Vectors of Integration and Production of Non-religion in Contemporary Society. The Case of the League of Education

This chapter focuses on the axiological and political answers of a French non-religious organisation to the increased identity claims and diversification of the French contemporary society. The proposals backed by the movement, the League of Education, are neither religious nor anti-religious. They aim rather at being inclusive of all spiritual and philosophical groups of the society, in order to favour the living together. They provide a shared set of values, intended as a basis for a ‘secular contract’, which could renew the French democratic society, and even more extensively, Western societies, of the late modernity. The League of Education’s proposals are in line with the abstract and individual French model of citizenship: the organisation then refuses any institutional recognition of pluralism, even if its discourses are more open to the acceptance of identity needs.This chapter tries to understand how a non-religious organisation can favour the production and integration of non-religion in our society of late modernity. It shows the interest of grasping the study of secular organisations through the religious–non-religious entanglements (Quack, Method Theory Study Relig 26: 439–469, 2014).