Tolerance, secularism and citizenship in the formation of European identity

Toleration and laicite represent two basic ways of relation between the European state and religion. Historically, both appealed to the liberty of conscience and the state neutrality. However, while the first tried to define G state identity, the second looked for the limits of all state violence, including the simbolic violence against cultural practices of minority groups. Laicite could encourage the new European identity as for as this takes into account the challenges of the new democratic citizenship, which are in great extent the consecuence of its increasing plurality. In fact, a new approach to citizenship has been advanced in the lost decode, an approach that faces the claims of recognition possed by the politics of identity. This article aims to explore how a politics of recognition could contribute to the new European identity based on toleration and loicite.