Abstract
This article is part of my dissertation on The Czech Republic as a Secular State. Its purpose is to explain what a secular state is, how it originated, how it has developed, and how it can be defined.
Since the model of the laic state was primarily created in the gradually developing process of secularization in France and is linked to the local constitutional principle of laïcité, the article focuses primarily on this country. The article is divided into three interrelated parts.
The first part discusses the constitutional principle of laïcité, unique to France, and its development up to 1958; the second part examines the process of the separation of the state from the church and the process of the formation of the secular state, taking into account the legal and constitutional aspects of this process; and the third, the most extensive part, examines the development of both legal secularism and laïcité from 1958 to the present. Moreover, it puts the whole development in the context of the state's, gradually escalating, reaction to the growing influence of the "new" religions, especially Islam.