“French laicite is probably aggressive and antagonistic to religion, but there are other models of secularism in the world where there could be reconciliation between religion and secularism,” suggests the Tunisian political professor Rashid Al-Ghannushi. But what is the history that produced this notion and practice of the separation of Church and State. We also explore the resistance to ‘the separation’, the specific issue of Muslims in contemporary France and the rejection of the politics of multi-culturalism.