French Quakers

I was brought up a Quaker (member of the Society of Friends), worked for many years in the British Quaker headquarters and, although I'm no longer a member I still have sympathy with Quaker principles and admiration for many Quakers. Long before we came to live in France I also knew that there was a place called Congénies, the original seat of the French Société des Amis but I had no idea that it was just along the road from Lunel and that the old 19th century building had been restored as an active Meeting House. We quickly made contact with local Friends.

The origins of French Quakerism are romantic, told in full on the Congénies website where you can also find details of current activities. In brief the original group was part of the widespread protestant dissent in the Cevennes in the early part of the 17th century, but unlike many other such groups which fought a guerilla campaign against government forces, this group was pacifist. So in a sense the French group predated the birth of British Quakerism in the 1650s. But because of language barriers (at that time they spoke Occitan, not French) and poor communications, the French group did not learn about or identify with Quakers elsewhere for over a century.

But they did eventually become Friends or Quakers in name. Even now the Society in France is very small, with only around 500 adherents, and apart from a Centre in Paris, the Meeting House Congénies is their main building. We found we had friends in the Meeting already and we soon began to attend Meeting from time to time and to help out with the considerable job of running the Congénies Centre and its activities.

Just as churches in England are charities, so here they are associations. But religious associations are complicated here, and it has been interesting for us as sympathisers but not members to find that there is a role for us in the 'lay' association which has to exist to run nonreligious Quaker activities (upkeep and letting of the Meeting House for instance) alongside the 'church' or religious association (which has its own Law of 1905). In such a small group people are of course glad of any help they can get but it is at least a comfort to me that, thanks to this strict separation of the secular and the religious in the French state, there is a natural place for someone like me who no longer believes in a religious sense but who is a sympathiser.

Further information about Quakers on these sites - France, Britain. These sites and the Congénies one above have links to further sites.