RELIGION AND POWER IN COLONIAL INDOCHINA

28/04/2016 16:30
Turkey

Whereas, the French Republican Regim conducted a policy to limit the Catholic Church influence in a strong anticlerical climate in France, the issue of the State/religions relationhips standed quite differently in Indochina. The famous quotation of Léon Gambetta, one of the most influent figure of the Third Republic, «Anticlericalism is not for export" is representative of the specific religious policy of the French laicicist Republic in the colonies. The Indochinese case is interesting because of its rich religious pluralism and the ancient establishment of Christianism, three centuries before the French conquest, and not, as many other colonies at the same time. How did the French Republican colonial power deal with this religious pluralism and what were the relationships with the Catholic Church?