In France, the majority of 18-59 year-olds identify as non-religious, according to the Trajectories and Origins 2 survey by Ined. This demographic shift changes the very nature of the dialogue about beliefs. The encounter between believers and non-believers is no longer a marginal exercise reserved for academic or ecclesiastical circles: it concerns society as a whole, from neighborhoods to municipal politics.
Interconvictional dialogue: what the term encompasses beyond the religious sphere
The term “interreligious dialogue” dominates research results and institutional documents. It refers to the relationship between people of different faiths, often with an explicit theological framework. This scope leaves aside a growing part of the French population: atheists, agnostics, and those without a claimed religious affiliation.
Interconvictional dialogue broadens this framework. It includes anyone willing to exchange views on their deep convictions, whether they are religious, philosophical, or constructed outside any tradition. Initiatives like those carried out on parvisdesgentils.fr specifically organize this encounter between believers and non-believers, based on the principle that the question of meaning does not belong to any one camp.
This distinction is not merely semantic. A format designed for dialogue between Catholics and Muslims does not function the same way when a participant does not identify with any tradition. The codes change: no shared scriptural reference, no common liturgical vocabulary. The entry point becomes the questioning itself, sometimes doubt, rather than belonging.
Believers and non-believers in France: a fragmented landscape of convictions
The Ined survey indicates that 51% of 18-59 year-olds identify as non-religious. This figure does not mean that half of the population rejects all forms of spirituality. It reflects a detachment from established religious institutions, not necessarily from the quest for meaning.
On the believers’ side, the landscape is itself fragmented. Regular practicing Catholics represent a small fraction of the baptized population. Islam is the second declared religion, with practices and levels of commitment varying widely. Protestantism, Judaism, Buddhism, and other traditions complete a picture where no single conviction can claim to represent “the norm.”
This fragmentation poses a concrete challenge for organizers of meetings. A debate between a priest and an imam reflects only a part of the spectrum. The challenge is to include non-religious voices without reducing them to the role of opponents.
Doubt as common ground
Several recent initiatives explicitly target youth and questioning, including doubt. This approach has an advantage: it shifts the encounter from the terrain of certainty to that of shared inquiry. A believer going through a period of doubt and an agnostic questioning transcendence find themselves on more equal ground than in a format where each “represents” their tradition.
Field feedback varies on the effectiveness of these formats. Some believing participants feel that relativizing convictions weakens them. Others believe that dialogue is only valuable if it accepts intellectual vulnerability.
Collective action and secularism: the concrete frameworks for dialogue in France
Dialogue between convictions is not limited to conferences and round tables. It takes shape in concrete actions, often at the local level. The “Appeal of Metz,” a declaration by the Conference of Religious Leaders in France, illustrates this practical orientation. The text highlights shared commitments:
- Training young people to respect the convictions of others, beyond mere passive tolerance
- Combating attacks on individuals and places of worship, an issue that concerns all faiths
- Promoting justice and peace as common goals, regardless of each person’s theological motivations
Collective action becomes the space where convictions meet without clashing. When a believer and a non-believer engage together in a social project, the question of who is right about the existence of God takes a back seat.
Secularism and education for dialogue
In Rennes, a debate co-organized by young people, a heritage association, the University of Rennes, and the League of Human Rights brought together participants with varied convictions around secularism. This type of initiative fits into local policies for education in living together.
French secularism, often seen as an obstacle to religious dialogue, can also serve as its framework. It guarantees a neutral space where no conviction enjoys a privileged status. For non-believers, this framework is a condition for participation: without institutional neutrality, dialogue feels like an invitation to enter a space that is not theirs.
Limits and tensions in the dialogue between believers and non-believers
Organizing a space for exchange between people with radically different convictions involves managing several tensions. The first is that of asymmetry: a believer engaged in a structured community has vocabulary, argumentative tradition, and a network. A non-believer often presents alone, without any “institution” behind them.
The second tension concerns the purpose. For some believing participants, the dialogue aims at conversion or, at the very least, indirect evangelization. For others, it is about mutual understanding without ulterior motives. If participants do not have the same definition of success, the encounter can lead to misunderstandings.
A third difficulty relates to representativeness. Non-believers who agree to participate in these meetings are not representative of all non-religious individuals. Many simply feel that the religious question does not concern them and see no point in dialoguing on a subject they consider irrelevant.
- The institutional asymmetry between organized believing participants and isolated non-believers remains a structural barrier
- The confusion between dialogue and proselytism discourages some non-believers from engaging in these spaces
- Academic or ecclesiastical formats effectively exclude those distanced from these environments
These limits do not disqualify the approach. They signal that dialogue between believers and non-believers is a more demanding exercise than traditional interreligious dialogue, because it does not rest on any shared foundation, not even the belief in a transcendence. The encounter is then built on what remains when certainties are removed: the ability to listen to a worldview that is not one’s own.
