France

In 2006, an official report by Jean Pierre Machelon drew the following distribution of the religious population in France: 65% of the French people declare themselves Catholics, 25% Agnostics, 6% Muslims, 2% Protestants (including more and more of Evangelicals and Pentecostals), around 750,000 Historical Christians (Orthodox, Armenian, Copt, Syriac, Chaldean, Maronite, etc.), 600,000 Jews, 400,000 Buddhists, and a notable presence of “members of New Religious Movements.” However, some scholars believe that the reality of religious life in France is less Catholic and more Protestant than the statistics suggest.