Thesis supervisor: François-Mathieu Poupeau
In France, 95% of Catholic churches are owned by local authorities. These buildings are therefore affected by changes in local public policy, particularly with regard to the management of public heritage. At the same time, as places of worship, churches are also affected by changes specific to the religious institution that uses them. They therefore constitute interfaces between local public action and the religious institution, revealing the restructuring of their relationships. This thesis therefore focuses on the management of municipal churches by the local authorities that own them, and in particular their use in local public action through local energy and cultural policies. It is divided into three areas: first, the analysis of the construction of national frameworks for action (financial, regulatory, organizational) concerning local action by and on communal churches. The aim is to understand how the current treatment of communal churches at the national level encourages, constrains, and shapes their use by the local authorities that own them. The second area focuses on the design of public action involving churches, studying both the characteristics of municipalities that mobilize their communal churches for local initiatives, the process of designing local action, and the influence of the building's specific characteristics on this design. Finally, the third area studies the latent effects produced by the political involvement of churches, both on public action in general and on sectoral actions in particular, as well as on church-community relations. This project therefore aims to identify the conditions and reasons that govern the inclusion of communal churches in local public action, as well as their effects, in order to identify what the management and inclusion of these buildings in public action says about the relationship between public and religious authorities.
Year of enrollment: 2024
Doctoral school: OMI – Organizations, Markets, Institutions