French Court Says Local Council's Nativity Scene Violates Principle of Secularism

On Tuesday in France, the Nantes administrative court ruled that the traditional nativity scene that for years has been placed at the entrance to the Vendee government's council building in La Roche-sur-Yon must be removed. As reported by The Local, the court held that the display is inconsistent with the principle of secularism (laicitie) embodied in France's 1905 Law on Separation of Churches and State. The ruling came in a case filed by the local Free Thinking Association, and shortly after a Belgian activist group tore down a nativity scene in Brussels.