This article first deploys a historical account of the French model of secularization, before and beyond mere laïcité. Drawing on an analysis of the imperial and colonial genealogies of secularization, it then moves on to examine some structural polemics in contemporary France: polemics about the veil since 1989 and the more recent debate on Wokism and Islamo-leftism among intellectuals. The last part of the essay is a theoretical intervention in some of the current debates about race, gender and secularism in recent scholarship on France and Algeria done by feminist Scholars.