I would like to define French secularism, or laïcité, because Senegal and many former French colonies in West and Central Africa have inscribed laïcité as a basic principle in their constitutions. Without a doubt, laïcité refers to the separation of politics from religion. The concept of laïcité arose from French history. The secularization process in France since the French Revolution was "an emancipation movement confronted with a church that the tumultuous history of France had made into a hegemonic (even monopolistic) institution in the universe of symbols". The church was at the heart of political power in monarchical France — it consecrated the crowning of the kings of France.

The French Revolution abolished the monarchy. Secularism was established as a political measure with the Law of 1905 that enshrined the separation of church and state.