French secularity (French: laïcité, pronounced ) is the absence of religious involvement in government affairs especially the prohibition of religious influence in the determination of state policies; it is the absence of government involvement in religious affairs, especially the prohibition of government influence in the determination of religion. French secularism has a long history but the current regime is based on the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State. During the twentieth century, it evolved to mean equal treatment of all religions, although a more restrictive interpretation of the term has developed since 2004. Dictionaries ordinarily translate laïcité as secularity or secularism (the latter being the political system), although it is sometimes rendered in English as laicity or laicism by its opponents. While the term was first used with this meaning in 1871 in the dispute over the removal of religious teachers and instruction from elementary schools, the word laïcité dates to 1842.