Notre Dame Is Still Burning

In May, France’s Assemblée Nationale voted in favor of legalizing assisted suicide, taking another step down the road of moral decline and advancing a precedent that the state should assist a citizen in their ‘right to die.’ The vote, split 305-199 among its eleven political parties, garnered international attention, revealing to Europe and the world just how far a once-deeply Christian France had drifted from its own roots.

In modern-day France, traditional conservative Christians are politically homeless. That is to say, the past decade of mass migration, the Right’s repeated political compromises, and the country’s cultural drift have led to a moment where those who remain committed to France’s Christian heritage as well as acting on their own morals find themselves shut out of every major political movement. 

This reality seems largely misunderstood by Americans, many of whom project our own categories of Left and Right onto a French political spectrum that has developed along a different path with a dramatic history of revolution and restoration, Catholic monarchy, the Enlightenment, and its own brands of traditionalism and relativism. One reason we have largely lost sight of France’s historical soul is that we fail to see its proper roots, which do not begin in 1789, but long before. The France that had a hand in some of the most glorious and impactful parts of building Western civilization, that began with the baptism of Clovis in the 5th century, was the product of neither revolutionary nor enlightenment ideals. 

During the Ancien Regime, the monarchy and aristocracy, for all their faults, commissioned the works of beauty we travel far and wide to see, and widely upheld tradition and cultural continuity. Yes, France had its fair share of Sun King-esque monarchs, but it also had rulers like St. Louis IX, who professed Christian duty to the souls of his subjects over self-aggrandizing palace-building. Even in the American democratic tradition, there are echoes of this, though they are hardly taught in public schools. As a devout Catholic, Alexis de Tocqueville’s writing is highly suggestive that power must be linked to sacrifice, and that an ideal democracy must retain elements of aristocracy. The Ivy League’s voluntary enlistment in World War I, and the missionary stories of highly educated Americans in our early days signaled an understanding that higher education and being born into privileged families carried a responsibility for service.

But today, in France, that concept is nearly extinct. The French political elites of the modern republic do not see themselves as stewards of souls, much less do they approach power with Christian moral conviction, much less humility. Today’s traditional Catholic voters, for instance, recount decades of betrayal from the Right, which in the past decade may have improved in promoting policies to safeguard national identity or border security, yet routinely ignore or abandon the Christian morality and anthropology central to their country’s DNA. The right-wing National Rally party, for instance, has correctly focused attention on immigration and national sovereignty, but the party offers no coherent defense of life and opposes neither abortion nor assisted suicide. With the latter possibly heading to referendum, the debate has revealed strange alignments, where leaders on the French Left oppose assisted suicide, but only on economic grounds, arguing that the law disadvantages the poor. But save a few lone voices on the French Right (who speak out, knowing they distance themselves from their own party and risk ostracization), so-called Christian politicians are silent on the question of whether the state should sanction assisted suicide or allow elective abortion.

At present, it’s not just that traditional Christians disagree with the Left—it’s that they cannot find a voice on the Right. Though the French retain a fair bit of cultural conservatism, the acknowledgement of its roots in Christian anthropology and transcendent moral objectivity is largely absent, leaving nowhere to turn when it comes to family policy, protection of the unborn, defense of the elderly, or upholding the sanctity of marriage. In the political imagination of today’s France, these issues are either ignored, treated as settled, or considered embarrassments from a bygone era. 

Of course, the French government, led by President Emmanuel Macron, has a deeply secularist posture. The irony of entering its buildings—both the Assemblée Nationale and the aristocratic-looking Sénat, is that its statues and art boldly proclaim the country’s strong Catholic undercurrents, more so than you would ever find in the U.S. Yet, the government operates under an aggressive laïcité—separating not just Church and state, but the public sphere from any serious religious expression. Several decades of clericalism, secularization, and institutional rot have gutted the Church’s presence in civic life and turned the government into a controller rather than facilitator of the faith. 

Relatedly, France has one of the worst demographic crises looming in their midst. Fertility has plummeted (over 20% since 2010), and mass migration has been championed as a solution, with neglect of the major challenges of cultural integration. Today, almost all French Muslims are immigrants or the children of immigrants, with high rates of religious transmission, particularly when compared to religious transmission among Catholics (91% to 67%). So, while Christian church identity declines, Islam is on the rise. Worse still, the perception among some Muslim-majority immigrant communities is that Christian civilization stands for nothing but woke ideology and pride flags. So, the Church, too, must examine its responsibility and role here. The record number of young converts to Catholicism in France today are clearly rejecting something in our society of pride and consumption, and gravitating to a world of liturgy, beauty, and formation, despite the immense sacrifices that life requires. On a clerical level, that is worth responding to.

Everyone remembers the 2019 tragic fire in Notre Dame Cathedral—the heart of Paris, where, to many Catholics, the fire felt like a wake-up call to the slow disappearance of France’s soul. And while many, including secular politicians, mourned its damage, the faith community was left thinking of how the symbol of their nation had become spiritually neglected long before it became physically incinerated. 

Yet, just as the crown of thorns was miraculously saved by Parisian firefighters, so too can we have hope for the soul of Paris. Recalling the words of Charles Peguy, (“The faith that I love best, says God, is hope”), France’s Christian DNA has always carried strong strains of hope, perhaps even optimistic conviction, particularly among the faithful that their church will not die.

Beginning with the unprecedented 5th century baptism of Clovis, to the five Marian apparitions that occurred in the 20th century alone (after the country’s stark rebellion against the faith), to the heroism of Saint Joan of Arc, the country has been a land of both grace and contradiction. One need not look further than the historic conversions happening around the country or to the conviction of the young pilgrims at Chartres to see that French Catholics, though politically abandoned, remain spiritually alive and an inspiration to the rest of the continent.

It’s a unique paradox; as recounted to me by a French Bishop, that Catholic conversions are on the rise, but cultural Catholicism is declining. This past Easter saw a 45% rise in Catholic conversions from the previous year, dominated by younger demographics; masses said for Ash Wednesday this April made the news for being packed to the brim. In the past decade, adult baptisms in France have surged from 3,900 in 2015 to 10,391 in 2025. 

As Americans, the question is, what can we learn from France, past and present? First, we must be students of the France that existed long before the 1789 revolution—of a people who lauded the aristocracy of the spirit, who held high the pursuit of faith, higher education, virtue, service, and patriotism. Of a Church that still has the saints and structures to rebuild. And from a remnant that, though politically homeless, is still convicted, and whom God hasn’t given up on yet.