87% of young people aged 15-24 in , turn to , their religion, strictly applying its rules. This is one of the findings of the research of the authoritative French polling institute Ifop (24/11/2025), which is causing great controversy in France.
In the country where the separation of church and state has been established by law since 1905, ensuring the byname “laicité” – the secular character of the state, and just days after events to mark the tenth anniversary of the November 13, 2015 Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris, which killed 132 people and injured 413, the poll reopens the public debate on Islam and its influence of in France.
The standoff is not expected to subside easily: already four Muslim organizations have filed lawsuits against Ifop, alleging prejudice against Muslims. Similar statements were made by members of parliament from the far-left party “Unruly France”, by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who claim that with these investigations a climate of Islamophobia is being cultivated in France.
Islam is the second religion in France after Catholicism
According to the Ifop survey, the total number of Muslims in France has increased from 0.5% in 1985 to 7% in 2025. Islam is now the second largest religion, after Catholicism (43%) and before Protestantism (4%). The percentage of the French who declare themselves non-religious amounts to 37.5%.
Among young Muslims aged 15 to 24, there is a trend towards a more strict, religious lifestyle. 87% of them state that they are religious, 59% believe that sharia law (Islamic law) should be applied even in non-Muslim countries, while 57% believe that the laws of Islam are superior to those of the French Republic. In addition, 42% express sympathy for Islamism, and almost one in two say they would refuse to kiss a person of the opposite sex on the cheek.
Regular prayers and frequent visits to mosques
The survey also notes that France’s Muslims are increasingly participating in religious ceremonies and praying much more regularly than they did forty years ago.
In 1989, only 16% of Muslims visited mosques, while today the corresponding figure is 35%. In 1989, only 41% prayed daily, while in 2025, the corresponding figure rises to 62% – among young people it reaches 67%. Adherence to dietary rules in accordance with the dictates of Islam is also on the rise: only 12% of Muslims under the age of 25 consume alcohol.
Islamic headscarf, equal identity
As for the Islamic headscarf, the Ifop survey records that its use by Muslim women remains overall a rather minority and unsystematic practice in France: 31% wear a headscarf, but only 19% wear it consistently.
However, its use has now become much more common among the younger generations: almost one in two Muslim women aged 18-24 now cover their hair (45%), a rate three times higher than in 2003 (16%), the year of the great public debate, which resulted in the legal ban of the headscarf in French public education. The Islamic headscarf is a religious requirement for all women who wear it (80%), but Muslim women in France also express pride in their identity through the headscarf: 38% say they wear it to show “their commitment to their religion”.
At the same time, the use of the headscarf also reflects the need to protect some women from pressure in the public space: 44% of Muslim women state that they wear it to “not attract the attention of men”, 42% to “feel safe”, 15% to “not be seen as provocative”, and 2% because they are under “direct pressure from relatives”.
Conflict with the values of the French Republic
In their conclusions, the authors of the research conclude that the strictest form of Islam is gaining ground in France but that the country is not becoming a field of application for the theory of the “great replacement” (of Christians by Muslims) as claimed by the French Far Right.
However, they emphasize that the rejection of forms of physical or visual contact with the opposite sex, as well as the use of the headscarf by Muslim women in France, testifies to a tendency towards “segregation of the sexes”, which is based on the concealment of the female body, and the tightening of relations between men and women.
This trend is in stark contrast to both Western liberal mores and the values of gender equality and coexistence that apply in France.
