Legal Analysis of the Freedom of Religion in French Companies: Between Protecting Employer Power and the Wishes of the Employee
In a globalized world characterized by multiculturalism and religious pluralism, the place of religion crystallizes media, political, intellectual and legal debates in many Western countries. Against the backdrop of difficulties related to the professional integration of people of the Muslim faith and religious discrimination at work, the issue of religion has arisen in those companies in which the expression of religious beliefs has diversified and become more complex. The analysis of this social phenomenon is characterized by a diversity of approaches and perspectives. It illustrates both the richness and complexity of the issues raised by studies of the link between religion and management. This article aims to provide a legal interpretation that is often absent in management science literature. We seek to show that legal regulation of the expression of religious beliefs in a company is based on an unstable balance of tension between the legal norms which, on the one hand, protect the religious rights and freedoms of employees and those which, on the other, limit the exercise of the employer’s power. The legal logic associated with religious considerations thus stems from the search for conciliation between these two blocks of rights and freedoms. This combination is fuelled by the uncertain and ambiguous nature of a legal framework in which arbitration between conflicting legal claims is not based on the mechanical application of abstract and impersonal rules. Indeed, there are no precise and unambiguous limits to the manifestation of religious beliefs and convictions in a company. Their expression always requires balanced responses.