letter from France
The recent announcement by fast-food chicken chain KFC, that several of their restaurants will become 100% halal, has caused a social media storm in a nation that is allergic to any hint of religion influencing the public space.
Evangelicalism has not been spared from scrutiny either. In September 2025, France 1 TV channel aired a special broadcast titled "Évangéliques: un succès pas si angélique?" (Evangelicals: a not so angelic success). The broadcast was biased and one-sided, presenting evangelicals in a negative light. The report adds fuel to the fire of suspicion that already follows evangelicals in France. The CNEF (National Council of Evangelicals) immediately issued a statement calling the broadcast “a blatant attack on evangelical Protestantism and the Christian faith as a whole”.
All is not doom and gloom, however, as ARTE, another popular French TV channel, interviewed Sebastian Fath, a leading expert on religion in France. Fath explained that Evangelicalism has grown in France from just 50,000 people in the 1950s to over a million today. He offered a positive view of Evangelical churches as places where people are offered warm welcomes and experience genuine care. Such glowing praise is rare on secular broadcasts, and one hopes it will help diffuse some of the fears surrounding Evangelicalism.
