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Talk:Canard Pars

First header
Where did this age info come from? I can't imagine that Canard is in his mid 30s. I'd say he's in his 20s at most. Redxiv 23:06, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Brother of Kira Yamato and Parents - clarification needed
Either Canard Pars and Kira Yamato ARE DEFINITELY brothers; OR Ulen Hibiki and Via Hibiki ARE POSSIBLY parents. You can't have ambiguity with the brothers relationship and then they a definite from the same parents relationship at the same time. By definition, same parents = siblings (half or full or step another topic). If they have the same parents, then they ARE brothers. If that is not confirmed, then it should be changed that they POSSIBLY have the same parents. Therefore, either the parents needs to be changed in the Canard Pars and/or the Kira Yamato entry, or the brother relationship needs to be changed in the Canard Pars and Kira Yamato entry. But I need someone whom have read the Manga and watched the Anime to confirm this to give the appropriate answer. Akosygin 03:54, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Crossposted from Talk:Kira Yamato
 * I'm removing Kira as a possible brother. No, not right now, but I'm giving everyone a heads up. The entire speculation about the blood relationship comes from a very ambiguous comment from Via. Now, we know she was a seemingly kind and caring woman, so it wouldn't be too odd if she was referring to the entire batch of lab-rat wombs as "our". But that's also speculation.

 * Now, for a bit more solid arguments: Uzumi knew everything about Kira's past, enough to secure and hide the twins, but he never even mentions Canard. Via's confrontation with Ulen happens after his decision to use Kira as a test subject, there's no mention of any children of hers used a year ago. There's a picture of Kira and Cagalli, but none of Canard among the Hibiki's possessions. In general, there's never being any solid hint towards there being a direct blood relation between Canard and Kira/Cagalli. It's far-off speculation. And considering Gundam "unconfirmed hints" tend to be pretty much freaking obvious ("Prayer: I was cloned from a certain EAF pilot" [Moebius Zero flies in the background]), I can't see enough reason to consider this any more than fanfiction material.

 * That's the deal. Comments? Ephyon 04:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

ok how about you put he is a clone of kira that is as close as it can be —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.140.137.21 (talk • contribs).

 * 1)Please watch where you put your replies.
 * 2)Where in the hells' name did you get "Clone" from? Ephyon 08:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Failure?
My Question's are:

 * 1) What made Canard a failure exactly?
 * 2) Maybe put in that Kira & Canard may be Related by blood but state that there is no supporting evidence? -- Awar 06:50, 20 April 2007 (UTC).

 * 1: What exactly were the problematic irregularities in the artificial wombs of the Ultimate Coorinator failures was never explained. The aspect of him that made him a failure was the same as that of every other coordinator: the genetic modifications on him weren't 100% accurate.
 * 2: The thing is, you might then as well go and say anything you want just as long as there is a slight possibility that it could be true. Canard's brotherhood is something the fans came up with, not hinted anywhere by anything. there's more evidence against it than for it (which is zero). There were a lot of babies used in the project, do you think Via Hibiki was the biological mother of ALL of them? Of course not. So why Canard, a guy who is never hinted at having any biological relationship with Kira, would somehow be more likely than the rest of the ratlab fetuses? Ephyon 07:54, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

title: Talk:Canard Pars


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Pretty Baby (Tony Jackson song)

"Pretty Baby" is a song written by Tony Jackson during the Ragtime era. The song was remembered as being prominent in Jackson's repertory before he left New Orleans in 1912, but was not published until 1916.

The background as to how the song came to be published has been confused over the years. However, it appears that composer Egbert Van Alstyne and lyricist Gus Kahn were writing partners. Whilst Van Alstyne was Chicago manager of music publishers Jerome H. Remick & Company, they heard Tony Jackson singing the song one evening at a Chicago nightspot. Van Alstyne and Kahn liked the melody, but felt the lyrics were unsuitable for mass consumption. This resulted in Jackson being paid $250 for the rights to the tune, and Kahn re-writing the lyrics, with Van Alstyne adding a verse, which he took from one of his earlier unsuccessful songs. Jackson's name was included on the sheet music.

The song was quickly interpolated into the Broadway show A World of Pleasure (which ran from October 14, 1915 to January 22, 1916), and was then used in the show The Passing Show of 1916 (June 22 – October 21, 1916), in which it was sung by Dolly Hackett. In London, the song was included in the musical Houp La!, which opened on November 23, 1916. In this show, it was sung by Gertie Millar.

Billy Murray recorded the song on June 22, 1916 for Victor Records (catalog 18102), and it was a success for him.

Other notable recordings

 * 1930 - The Louisiana Rhythm Kings recorded the song on January 27, 1930 as part of a series of hot instrumental versions of older songs by this Brunswick studio group, usually with Red Nichols as director.
 * 1947 - Bing Crosby recorded it on December 3, 1947 with John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra.
 * 1948 - Doris Day
 * 1949 - Al Jolson recorded it on May 17, 1949 for Decca Records.
 * 1957 - Dean Martin included the song on his album Pretty Baby.
 * 1960 - Brenda Lee recorded it for her album Grandma, What Great Songs You Sang!.
 * 1966 - Eddie Fisher included the song on his album I Love You.

Film appearances

 * 1929 - Is Everybody Happy?
 * 1930 - Mammy, sung by Al Jolson.
 * 1935 - Ruggles of Red Gap. It was sung in a skit by Leila Hyams (with Roland Young on the drums).
 * 1939 - Rose of Washington Square, performed by Al Jolson
 * 1943 - Coney Island, performed by Betty Grable, Harry Masters and male quartet.
 * 1944 - Broadway Rhythm, sung by Kenny Bowers, Gloria DeHaven, and Charles Winninger.
 * 1948 - Sitting Pretty, sung by a chorus during the opening credits and at the end.
 * 1948 - The Stork Market (Screen Songs), sung by a chorus, musical arrangements by Winston Sharples.
 * 1949 - Jolson Sings Again, sung by Al Jolson.
 * 1950 - Young Man with a Horn, played during the scene with the hula dancer.
 * 1951 - I'll See You in My Dreams, sung by Danny Thomas and played often throughout the picture.
 * 1953 - The Eddie Cantor Story, sung by Eddie in the Midnight Frolics.
 * 1978 - Pretty Baby, performed by Antonio Fargas and also played when the kids are in the barn.

In popular culture
In a 2008 episode of the British soap opera EastEnders, veteran character Dot Branning had the show's first monologue episode. During the programme, Dot recalls her wartime experiences as a child, in which her beloved uncle would sing to her. She sings "Pretty Baby" into the tape recorder (for her sick husband, Jim Branning). The episode ends with Al Jolson's recording of the song.

Lyrics
Billy Murray's 1916 recording has lyrics as follows:

Verse 1

 * You ask me why I'm always teasing you.
 * You hate to have me call you "Pretty Baby."
 * I really thought that I was pleasing you,
 * For you're just a baby to me.

 * Your cunning little dimples and your baby stare,
 * Your baby talk and baby walk and curly hair,
 * Your baby smile
 * Makes life worthwhile.
 * You're just as sweet as you can be.

Verse 2

 * Your mother said you were the cutest kid.
 * No wonder, Dearie, that I'm wild about you
 * And all the cunning things you said and did.
 * Why, I love to fondly recall.

 * And just like Peter Pan it seems you'll always be
 * The same sweet cunning little baby dear to me,
 * And that is why
 * I'm sure that I
 * Will always love you best of all.

Chorus

 * Everybody loves a baby that's why I'm in love with you,
 * Pretty baby, pretty baby,
 * And I'd like to be your sister, brother, dad and mother too,
 * Pretty baby, pretty baby.

 * Won't you come and let me rock you in my cradle of love
 * And we'll cuddle all the time.
 * Oh, I want a lovin' baby, and it might as well be you,
 * Pretty baby of mine,
 * Pretty baby of mine.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Pretty Baby (Tony Jackson song)


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British Columbia Parliament Buildings

The British Columbia Parliament Buildings are in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and are home to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia.

The Speaker and the Sergeant-at-Arms are amongst those responsible for the legislative precinct, which by statute include the Parliament Buildings and grounds.

The neo-Baroque buildings face north on Belleville Street facing the Inner Harbour and diagonally across from The Empress Hotel. Atop the central dome is a gold-covered statue of Captain George Vancouver.

A statue of Queen Victoria stands on the front lawn as well the British Columbia Legislature Cenotaph commemorating the province's World War I, World War II, Korean War, and Afghanistan War dead. In front of the Queen Victoria statue is the 30-metre-tall Provincial Christmas Tree, an example of giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), misidentified as a "coastal redwood" (Sequoia sempervirens) on the granite marker before it.

Free guided tours of the facility are offered year-round.

History
From 1856 to 1860 the Legislature of the Colony of Vancouver Island met at Bachelor's Hall at Fort Victoria. From 1860 to 1898 it was housed in the first permanent building at Legislative Hall or Legislative Council Court, a two-storey wooden building along with four other buildings (Land Office, Colonial Office, Supreme Court, and Treasury) known colloquially as "The Birdcages" because of their shape (burned 1957).

Construction of a new Parliament building was first authorized by an act of the provincial legislature in 1893, the Parliament Buildings Construction Act. The province, anxious to commemorate its growing economic, social, and political status, was engaged in an architectural competition to build a new legislative building in Victoria, after outgrowing "The Birdcages", which were notoriously drafty and leaked in wet weather. Francis Rattenbury, a recent English immigrant, 25 years old, entered the contest and signed his drawings with the pseudonym "A B.C. Architect". He progressed to the second round, signing his drawing "For Queen and Province" and eventually won the competition.

Despite many problems, including exceeding budget – the original budget was $500,000; the final amount was $923,000 – the British Columbia Parliament Buildings officially began operation in 1898. The grand scale of its 500 ft andesite façade, central dome, and two end pavilions, the richness of its white marble, and combination of Baroque rigorous symmetry, use of domes and sculptural massing with the rusticated surfaces of the then-popular Renaissance style.

Its success garnered Rattenbury many more commissions in Victoria and other parts of the province, including the Legislative Library (constructed between 1913 and 1915 and the cornerstone of which was laid by Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught), the design of the Empress Hotel, the Crystal Gardens indoor swimming pool nearby, and the Vancouver Court House (now the Vancouver Art Gallery). The andesite of the British Columbia Parliament Buildings is from Haddington Island in the Alert Bay Volcanic Belt. The granite used to build the buildings came from Nelson Island, at the mouth of Jervis Inlet, on the Sunshine Coast.

Besides the elected members of the Legislative Assembly, two organizations have been granted the privilege of using the Legislative Chambers during the legislature's December recess: the British Columbia Youth Parliament (since 1924, except during its sessions of the late 1940s and early 1950s) and the British Columbia Universities' Model Parliament.

During the 1994 Commonwealth Games, free music concerts were held on the front lawns of the buildings, attracting as many as 40,000 people. Similar-sized crowds have gathered on the front lawn over the years, ranging from political protests and rallies, such as during the Solidarity Crisis of 1983, to celebrations of various kinds, including the BC150 ceremonies.

Exterior sculpture program
The sculpture on the buildings was designed by the provincial librarian, E.O.S. Scholefield and executed by Charles Marega and his assistant Bernard Carrier. For the exterior of the library Marega created 14 figures: Chief Maquinna, Captain George Vancouver, Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, Dr. John McLoughlin, Hon. John Sebastian Helmcken, Captain James Cook, Sir James Douglas, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Alexander McKenzie, Simon Fraser, Lord Lytton, Sir Anthony Musgrave, David Thompson, and Col. R.C. Moody. Carrier produced twelve figures of women, all allegorical, three around each of the building's four domes.

Mural controversy
In 1932, artist George Southwell was commissioned to paint murals in the rotunda depicting scenes from British Columbia history from 1792 to 1843. The work was completed three years later. Decades later, controversy arose over the depiction of West Coast Indigenous peoples in the murals, which in modern times is now regarded as degrading, and amounting to cultural appropriation. One mural, entitled Labour, portrays bare-breasted Indigenous women hauling timber while a white man watches. In another entitled Justice, an Indigenous chief is shown standing before a judge (said to be Matthew Baillie Begbie), suggesting the subjugation of natives to colonial law. However, Southwell's daughter claimed that her father depicted the chief as standing before another judge, one who championed Indigenous rights.

A 2001 report, commissioned by the New Democrat government of the day, recommended that the murals be relocated to a museum where they could be given historical perspective. However, as the murals are painted on to the walls of the rotunda, the cost of removing them was estimated at $280,000. In April 2007, the legislature voted to remove murals, with only 3 of the 71 members voting against the motion. Since that vote, the murals have been fully restored and hidden from public view behind false walls.

Orientation and symbolism
The main axis of the BC Parliament Buildings is oriented 12 degrees east of true north, symbolically aligning it with the City of Vancouver. Atop the dome of the building, a statue of Captain Vancouver gazes towards the city that bears his name. This particular alignment also points towards the peak of Mount Douglas, the highest point in the Victoria area and a significant survey landmark used in mapping the region.

title: British Columbia Parliament Buildings


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Religion in France

The majority of the religious population in France identifies as Christian. Catholicism is the most prominent denomination in France, but has long lost the state religion status it held prior to the 1789 French Revolution and during various non-republican regimes of the 19th century, including the Restoration, the July Monarchy and the Second French Empire.

Religion in France is diverse, which could be attributed to the country's adherence to secularism, freedom of religion and freedom of thought, as guaranteed by the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The Republic is based on the principle of laïcité (or "freedom of conscience") established by the 1880s Jules Ferry laws and the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State.

The major religions practiced in France include Christianity (about 50% of the overall population, with denominations including Catholicism, various branches of Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Armenian Orthodoxy), Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism among others, making it a multiconfessional country. About 40% of the population is non-religious. Sunday Mass attendance has fallen to 5% for Catholics, and the overall level of religious observance is generally lower than in the past.

Chronological statistics
Note that these are from different sources and likely have different methodologies, which makes survey to survey comparisons uncertain.

Survey data
In 2015, the Eurobarometer, a survey funded by the European Union, found that Christianity was the religion of 54.3% of the respondents, with Catholicism being the main denomination with 47.8%, followed by other Christians with 4.1% (Protestants with 1.8% and the Eastern Orthodox with 0.6%). Muslims were found to comprise 3.3%, Jews were 0.4%, and members of the other religions were 1.6%. Unaffiliated people were 40.4%; 22.8% declared to be atheists, and 17.6% declared to be agnostics.

In 2017, the Pew Research Center found in their Global Attitudes Survey that 54.2% of the French regarded themselves as Christians, with 47.4% belonging to the Catholic Church, 3.6% being unaffiliated Christians, 2.2% being Protestants, and 1.0% being Eastern Orthodox. The 37.8% of unaffiliated people were divided into 24.8% atheists, 8.2% of nothing in particular, and 4.8% of agnostics. Muslims made up 5.0% of the population, Jews made up 0.4%, and members of other religions made up 1.4%. 1.1% were either undecided or didn't answer the question.

In May 2019, the Eurobarometer conducted a survey in France. It was published in September 2019 within Special Eurobarometer 493, showing the following outcome: Christians made up 47% of the population, with Catholics making up 41%, Orthodox Christians making up 2%, Protestants making up 2%, and other Christians making up 2% each. Muslims were found to be 5%, Jews 1%, and Buddhists 1%. Atheists (21%) and nonbelievers (or agnostics) (19%) made up 40% of unaffiliated people. People of other religions made up 5% of the population, while those who refused to answer made up 1%.

Religion among the youth
According to the European Value Survey, between 2010 and 2012, 47% of French youth declared themselves Christians, while according to an IFOP study based on a sample of 406, around 52% of 11- to 15-year-olds declared themselves Catholics, and according to a CSA poll, around 65.4% of 18- to 24-year-old French declared themselves as Christians.

A 2010 Pew Research Center survey found that 60% of French people (7 million) between the ages of 15 and 29 identified themselves as Christians.

In 2018, a study by the French polling agency OpinionWay, which was paid for by three Catholic institutions, found that 41% of French adults between the ages of 18 and 30 said they were Catholics, 3% said they were Protestants, 8% said they were Muslims, 1% said they were Buddhists, 1% said they were Jews, and 3% said they were part of other religions.

52 percent of those who believed in God thought that his existence was either certain or likely, 28% thought it was unlikely, and 19% thought it was impossible.

In the same year, a study was done by the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at London's St. Mary's University and the Institut Catholique de Paris. The study also used data from the European Social Survey for 2014 and 2016, with a sample size of 600 people aged 16 to 29. Of these 600 people, 25% were Christians (23% Catholic and 2% Protestant), 10% were Muslims, 1% were of other religions, and 64% were not religious.

The information came from two questions: "Do you think of yourself as a member of any particular religion or denomination?" was asked to the whole sample, and "Which one?" was asked to the sample that said "Yes."

Pew Research says that the average number of children born to non-Muslims in Europe (but not specifically in France) is 1.6, while the average number of children born to Muslims is 2.6. This is why there are so many more young Muslims than other groups.

History
France guarantees freedom of religion as a constitutional right, and the government generally respects this right in practice. Because of a long history of anticlericalism, the state cut its institutional ties with the Catholic Church in 1905 and made a strong promise to keep the public sector free of religion.

Catholicism as a state religion
Catholicism is the largest religion in France. During the pre-1789 Ancien Régime, France was traditionally considered the Church's eldest daughter, and the King of France always maintained close links to the Pope. However, the "Gallicanism" policy meant that the king selected bishops.

French Wars of Religion (1562–1598)
A strong Protestant population resided in France, primarily of Reformed confession. The government usually opposed this but at times, tolerated more. This supppression continued throughout the 16th century, culminating in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, until the 1598 Edict of Nantes issued by Henry IV.

For the first time, the state considered Huguenots something other than mere heretics. The Edict of Nantes thus opened a path for secularism and tolerance. In addition to offering general freedom of conscience to subjects, the edict offered many specific concessions to the Huguenots, including amnesty and the reinstatement of their civil rights, the right to work for the state or in any field, and to bring grievances directly to the king.

Post–Edict of Nantes (1598–1789)
The 1598 Edict also granted the Protestants places of safety (places de sûreté), military strongholds such as La Rochelle (for which the king paid 180,000 écus a year), along with a further 150 emergency forts (places de refuge), to be maintained at the Huguenots' own expense. Such an innovative act of toleration stood virtually alone in a Europe (except for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) where standard practice forced the subjects of a ruler to follow whatever religion that the ruler formally adopted – the application of the principle of cuius regio, eius religio.

Religious conflicts resumed at the end of the 17th century, when Louis XIV, the "Sun King," initiated the persecution of Huguenots by introducing the dragonnades in 1681. This wave of violence intimidated the Protestants into converting to Catholicism. He made the policy official with the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes. As a result, a large number of Protestants—estimates range from 200,000 to 500,000—left France during the following two decades, seeking asylum in England, the United Provinces, Denmark, the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire (Hesse, Brandenburg-Prussia, etc.), and in European colonies in North America and South Africa.

The revocation returned France to a state of affairs similar to that of virtually every other European country of the period, in which only the state religion was tolerated. Europe's experiment with religious tolerance was effectively over for the time being. In practice, the revocation caused France to suffer a brain drain, as it lost a large number of skilled craftsmen, including key designers such as Daniel Marot.

French Revolution
The French Revolution stripped the Catholic Church of most of its wealth, power, and influence. The early revolutionaries sought to secularize all of French society, an effort inspired in part by the writings and philosophy of Voltaire. In August 1789, the new National Assembly abolished tithes, the mandatory 10% income tax which all Frenchmen (including non-Catholics) paid to the Catholic Church. In November 1789, they voted to expropriate the vast wealth of the Church in endowments, lands and buildings. In 1790, the Assembly abolished monastic religious orders. Statues and saints were rejected in a burst of iconoclasm, and most religious instruction ended.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 1790 put the Catholic Church under state control. It upended the traditional authority of the Church by required priests and bishops to be elected by their parishioners. The Republic legalized divorce and transferred birth, death, and marriage registrations to the state. The Catholic clergy was persecuted by the Paris Commune of 1792 to 1795 and by some of the Représentants en mission. Most notably, Jean-Baptiste Carrier conducted large-scale drownings of priests and nuns in the river Loire.

In 1793, the government established a secular Republican Calendar. Church tradition had set aside every Sunday, together with many saint's days and other religious holidays, as days for celebration and relaxation but the government tried to end all that and to increase the total number of working days. It instituted a 10-day week, allowing one day in 10 for relaxation. Workers and peasants felt cheated and overworked. The new system disrupted daily routines and ended cherished celebrations. When the reformers were overthrown or executed, their radical new calendar was quickly abandoned. Religious minorities—Protestants and Jews—were granted full civil and political rights, which represented a shift towards a more secular government to some, and an attack on the Catholic Church to others. New religions and philosophies were allowed to compete with Catholicism. The introduction of the prominent cults during the revolutionary period – the Cult of Reason and the Cult of the Supreme Being – responded to the belief that religion and politics should be seamlessly fused together. This is a shift from the original Enlightenment ideals of the Revolution that advocated for a secular government with tolerance for various religious beliefs. While Maximilien Robespierre favored a religious foundation to the Republic, he maintained a hard stance against Catholicism because of its association with corruption and the counterrevolution.

The cults sought to erase the old ways of religion by closing churches, confiscating church bells, and implementing a new Republican Calendar that excluded any days for religious practice. Many churches were converted into Temples of Reason. The Cult of Reason was first to de-emphasize the existence of God, and instead focus on deism, featuring not the sacred, divine, nor eternal, but the natural, earthy, and temporal existence. To tie the church and the state together, the cults transformed traditional religious ideology into politics. The Cult of the Supreme Being used religion as political leverage. Robespierre accused political opponents of hiding behind God and using religion to justify their oppositional stance against the Revolution. It was a shift in ideology that allowed for the cult to use the new deistic beliefs for political momentum.

Following the Thermidorian Reaction the persecutions of Catholic clergy ceased and the role of new cults practically ended.

Napoleon and concordat with the Vatican
The Catholic Church was badly hurt by the Revolution. By 1800 it was poor, dilapidated and disorganized, with a depleted and aging clergy. The younger generation had received little religious instruction, and was unfamiliar with traditional worship. However, in response to the external pressures of foreign wars, religious fervor was strong, especially among women.

Napoleon, who took control in a coup by 1800, decided that religious divisiveness had to be minimized to unite France. The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII, signed in July 1801 that remained in effect until 1905. It sought national reconciliation between revolutionaries and Catholics and solidified the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France, with most of its civil status restored. The hostility of devout Catholics against the state had then largely been resolved. It did not restore the vast church lands and endowments that had been seized upon during the revolution and sold off. Catholic clergy returned from exile, or from hiding, and resumed their traditional positions in their traditional churches. Very few parishes continued to employ the priests who had accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of the Revolutionary regime. While the Concordat restored much power to the papacy, the balance of church-state relations tilted firmly in Napoleon's favour. He selected the bishops and supervised church finances.

Bourbon Restoration (1814-1830)
The Bourbon Restoration made the Catholic Church again the state religion of France. Other religions were tolerated, but Catholicism was favored both financially and politically. Its lands and financial endowments were not returned, but the government now paid salaries and maintenance costs for church activities. The bishops had regained control of Catholic affairs and of education. While the aristocracy before the Revolution did not place a high priority on religious doctrine or practice, the decades of exile created an alliance of throne and altar. The royalists who returned were much more devout, and much more aware of their need for a close alliance with the Church. They had discarded skepticism and now promoted the wave of Catholic religiosity that was sweeping Europe, with a new regard to the Virgin Mary, the Saints, and popular religious rituals such as saying the rosary. Devotionalism was far stronger in rural areas, and much less noticeable in Paris and the other cities. The population of 32 million included about 680,000 Protestants, and 60,000 Jews. They were tolerated. Anti-clericalism of the sort promoted by the Enlightenment and writers such as Voltaire had not disappeared, but it was in recession and repressed by the ultra-conservative Bourbon government.

At the elite level, the intellectual climate changed dramatically from the intellectually oriented classicism to emotionally based romanticism. A book by François-René de Chateaubriand entitled Génie du christianisme ("The Genius of Christianity") (1802) had an enormous influence in reshaping French literature and intellectual life. It emphasized the power of religion in creating European high culture. Chateaubriand's book did more than any other single work to restore the credibility and prestige of Christianity in intellectual circles and launched a fashionable rediscovery of the Middle Ages and their Christian civilisation. The revival was by no means confined to an intellectual elite, however, but was evident in the real, if uneven, rechristianisation of the French countryside.

Napoleon III (1848-1870)
Napoleon III strongly supported Catholic interests, financing the church and supporting Catholic missionaries in the emerging French Empire. His primary goal was the conciliation of religious and anti-religious interests in France to avoid the conflicts that took place during the revolution and that reappeared after he lost power.

In terms of foreign policy, the French army stopped the anti-clerical Kingdom of Italy from taking full control of Rome after it was formed in 1860 and took over parts of the papal states. In Paris, the conservative Gallican bishops helped the Emperor control the French people, while liberal Catholic intellectuals wanted to use the Church as an instrument of reform. A problem arose with Pope Pius IX, who reigned from 1846 to 1878. He started out as a liberal but suddenly, in the 1860s, became the leading champion of reactionary politics in Europe, in opposition to all forms of modern liberalism. He demanded complete autonomy for the church and its religious and educational affairs and had the First Vatican Council (1869–70) decree papal infallibility. Napoleon III's foreign policy was too tied to Rome's support for him to break with the Pope, but his close relationship with the Pope made him very weak at home. When he declared war on Prussia in 1870, he brought his army home, and the kingdom of Italy swallowed up the papal domains, and the Pope became a prisoner of the Vatican. When the Vatican spoke out against progress, industrialization, capitalism, socialism, and almost every new idea, it upset liberal and conservative Catholics in France. It also energized secular liberals, including many professionals, and the anti-clerical socialist movement. They stepped up their attacks on church control of schools.

Third Republic (1870–1940)
Throughout its lifetime, the Third Republic (1870–1940) saw battles over the status of the Catholic Church in France between the republicans and the monarchists and other authoritarians (such as the Napoleonists). The French Catholic clergy and bishops were closely associated with the monarchists, and its higher hierarchy was largely drawn from noble families. The republicans' power base was the anti-clerical middle class, which saw the Church's alliance with the monarchists as both a political threat to the republic and a threat to the modern spirit of progress. The republicans detested the Church for its political and class affiliations; for them, the Church represented the Ancien Régime, a time in French history most republicans hoped was long behind them. The Republicans were strengthened by Protestant and Jewish support. Numerous laws successively weakened the Catholic Church. In 1879, priests were excluded from the administrative committees of hospitals and boards of charity; in 1880, new measures were directed against the religious congregations; from 1880 to 1890, lay women replaced nuns in many hospitals; and in 1882, the Ferry school laws were passed. Napoleon's Concordat of 1801 continued to ensure state funding of the church, but in 1881, the government cut off salaries to priests, which it disliked.

Republicans feared that religious orders in control of schools—especially the Jesuits and Assumptionists—indoctrinated anti-republicanism into children. Determined to root this out, republicans insisted the state needed control of the schools for France to achieve economic and militaristic progress. (Republicans felt one of the primary reasons for the German victory in 1870 was their superior education system.)

The early anti-Catholic laws were largely the work of republican Jules Ferry in 1882. Religious instruction was pushed out of all schools, and religious orders were forbidden to teach in them. Funds were appropriated from religious schools to build more state schools. Later in the century, other laws passed by Ferry's successors further weakened the Church's position in French society. Civil marriage became the only legal one, divorce was introduced, and chaplains were removed from the army.

When Leo XIII became pope in 1878, he tried to calm Church-State relations. In 1884, he told French bishops not to act in a hostile manner toward the State ('Nobilissima Gallorum Gens' ). In 1892, he issued an encyclical advising French Catholics to rally to the Republic and defend the Church by participating in republican politics ('Au milieu des sollicitudes' ). This attempt at improving the relationship failed. Deep-rooted suspicions remained on both sides and were inflamed by the Dreyfus Affair (1894–1906). Catholics were for the most part anti-Dreyfusard. The Assumptionists published anti-Semitic and anti-republican articles in their journal La Croix. This infuriated republican politicians, who were eager to take revenge. Often they worked in alliance with Masonic lodges. The Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry (1899–1902) and the Combes Ministry (1902–05) fought with the Vatican over the appointment of bishops. Chaplains were removed from naval and military hospitals in the years 1903 and 1904, and soldiers were ordered not to frequent Catholic clubs in 1904.

Emile Combes, when elected Prime Minister in 1902, was determined to defeat Catholicism thoroughly. Shortly after taking office, he closed down all parochial schools in France. Then he had parliament reject authorisation of all religious orders. This meant that all fifty-four orders in France were dissolved and about 20,000 members immediately left France, many for Spain. The Combes government worked with Masonic lodges to create a secret surveillance of all army officers to make sure that devout Catholics would not be promoted. Exposed as the Affaire Des Fiches, the scandal undermined support for the Combes government, and he resigned. It also undermined morale in the army, as officers realized that hostile spies examining their private lives were more important to their careers than their own professional accomplishments.

1905: Separation of Church and State
Radicals (as they called themselves) achieved their main goals in 1905: they repealed Napoleon's 1801 Concordat. Church and State were finally separated. All Church property was confiscated. Religious personnel were no longer paid by the State. Public worship was given over to associations of Catholic laymen who controlled access to churches. However, in practice, masses and rituals continued to be performed.

A 1905 law instituted the separation of Church and State and prohibited the government from recognising, salarying, or subsidising any religion. The 1926 Briand-Ceretti Agreement subsequently restored for a while a formal role for the state in the appointment of Catholic bishops, but evidence for its exercise is not easily obtained. Prior to 1905, the 1801–1808 Concordat compelled the State to support the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Calvinist Church, and the Jewish religion, and to fund public religious education in those established religions.

For historical reasons, this situation is still current in Alsace-Moselle, which was a German region in 1905 and only joined France again in 1918. Alsace-Moselle maintains a local law of pre-1918 statutes which include the Concordat: the national government pays, as state civil servants, the clergy of the Catholic diocese of Metz and of Strasbourg, of the Lutheran Protestant Church of Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine, of the Protestant Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine, and of the three regional Israelite consistories, and it provides for now non-compulsory religious education in those religions in public schools and universities. Also for historical reasons, Catholic priests in French Guiana are civil servants of the local government.

Religious buildings built prior to 1905 at taxpayers' expense are retained by the local or national government, and may be used at no expense by religious organisations. As a consequence, most Catholic churches, Protestant temples, and Jewish synagogues are owned and maintained by the government but are assigned by the government to their respective religious communities for "legal, exclusive, free, perpetual use." The government, since 1905, has been prohibited from funding any post-1905 religious edifice, and thus religions must build and support all new religious buildings at their own expense. Some local governments de facto subsidise prayer rooms as part of greater "cultural associations".

Recent tensions
An ongoing topic of controversy is whether the separation of Church and State should be weakened so that the government would be able to subsidise Muslim prayer rooms and the training of imams. Advocates of such measures, such as Nicolas Sarkozy at times, declare that they would encourage the Muslim population to better integrate into the fabric of French society. Opponents contend that the state should not fund religions. Furthermore, the state ban on wearing conspicuous religious symbols, such as the Islamic female headscarf, in public schools has alienated some French Muslims, provoked minor street protests and drawn some international criticism.

In the late 1950s after the end of the Algerian war, hundreds of thousands of Muslims, including some who had supported France (Harkis), settled permanently to France. They went to the larger cities where they lived in subsidized public housing, and suffered very high unemployment rates. In October 2005, the predominantly Arab-immigrant suburbs of Paris, Lyon, Lille, and other French cities erupted in rioting by socially alienated young people, many of them second- or third-generation immigrants.

American University professor C. Schneider says:

"For the next three convulsive weeks, riots spread from suburb to suburb, affecting more than three hundred towns....Nine thousand vehicles were torched, hundreds of public and commercial buildings destroyed, four thousand rioters arrested, and 125 police officers wounded."

Traditional interpretations say the riots were spurred by radical Muslims or unemployed youth. Another view states that the riots reflected broader problem of racism and police violence in France.

In March 2012, a Muslim radical named Mohammed Merah shot three French soldiers and four Jewish citizens, including children in Toulouse and Montauban.

In January 2015, the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, that had ridiculed Muhammad, and a Jewish grocery store came under attack from radicalized Muslims who had been born and raised in the Paris region. World leaders rallied to Paris to show their support for free speech. Analysts agree that the episode had a profound impact on France. The New York Times summarized the ongoing debate:

"So as France grieves, it is also faced with profound questions about its future: How large is the radicalized part of the country's Muslim population, the largest in Europe? How deep is the rift between France's values of secularism, of individual, sexual and religious freedom, of freedom of the press and the freedom to shock, and a growing Muslim conservatism that rejects many of these values in the name of religion?"

Christianity
Christianity is the largest group of religions of France, but has recently stopped being a majority of the overall population. According to a survey held by Institut français d'opinion publique (Ifop) for the centre-right Institut Montaigne think-tank, 51.1% of the total population of France was Christian in 2016. The following year, a survey by Ipsos focused on Protestants and based on 31,155 interviews found that 57.5% of the total population of France declared to be Catholic and 3.1% declared to be Protestant.

In 2016, Ipsos Global Trends, a multi-nation survey held by Ipsos and based on approximately 1,000 interviews, found that Christianity is the religion of 45% of the working-age, internet connected population of France; 42% stated they were Catholic, 2% stated that they were Protestants, and 1% declared to belong to any Orthodox church.

In 2019, the Eurobarometer, a survey funded by the European Union, found that Christianity was the religion of 47% of the French, with Catholicism being the main denomination with 41%, followed by Orthodox Christian, Protestants and other Christians with 2% each one.

France is home to a number of Marian shrines, notably the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Chartres in Chartres, Notre Dame de la Salette in La Salette, Notre Dame de Paris in Paris, and the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. It is also home to the Taizé Community, an ecumenical Christian monastic fraternity in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy. All are important pilgrimage sites. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes appeals to a broader demographic, with 6 million people a year (before the pandemic) visiting Lourdes. With a focus on youth, Taize Community, on the other hand, has become one of the world's most important sites of Christian pilgrimage with over 100,000 young people from around the world converging each year for prayer, Bible study, sharing, and communal work.

Islam
A 2016 survey held by Institut Montaigne and Ifop found that 5.6% of the French population had an Islamic background, while 5.3% declared they were Muslims by faith. According to the same survey 84.9% of surveyed people who had at least one Muslim parent said were Muslims, 3.4% were Christians, 10.0% were not religious and 1.3% belonged to other religions.

According to Pew Research, in 2050 France will be 12.7% Muslim in the zero migration scenario (no migration to or from Europe), 17.4% in the medium migration scenario (regular migration continues and refugee flows cease), or 18% in the high migration scenario (2014 to mid-2016 refugee inflow patterns continue as well as regular migration).

Judaism
In 2016, 0.8% of the total population of France, or about 535,000 people, were religious Jews. In the 21st century, France has the largest Jewish population in Europe and the third-largest Jewish population in the world (after Israel and the United States).

Jewish presence in France is documented since the early Middle Ages. France was a center of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, but persecution increased as the Middle Ages wore on, including multiple expulsions and returns. During the late 18th-century French Revolution, France was the first country in Europe to emancipate its Jewish population. Antisemitism nonetheless persisted despite legal equality, manifested for instance in the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century.

During World War II, the Vichy government collaborated with Nazi occupiers to deport numerous French Jews and foreign Jewish refugees to concentration camps. 75% of the local Jewish population in France nonetheless survived the Holocaust, but a much higher percentage of the foreign Jewish refugees who had more recently arrived to France were deported and killed.

The majority of French Jews in the 21st century are Sephardi and Mizrahi North African Jews, many of whom (or their parents) emigrated from former French colonies of North Africa after those countries became independent in the 1950s and 1960s. They migrated to France in the second half of the 20th century. French Jews span a wide range of religious affiliations, from the ultra-Orthodox Haredi communities to the large segment of Jews who are entirely secular and who commonly marry outside the Jewish community.

Buddhism
As of the 2000s, Buddhism in France was estimated to have between 1 million (Ministry of the Interior) strict adherents and 5 million people influenced by Buddhist doctrines, very large numbers for a Western country. Many French Buddhists do not consider themselves "religious". According to scholar Dennis Gira, who was the director of the Institute of Science and Theology of Religions of Paris, Buddhism in France has a missionary nature and is undergoing a process of "inculturation" that may represent a new turning of the "Wheel of the Dharma", similar to those that it underwent in China and Japan, from which a new incarnation of the doctrine — a "French Buddhism" — will possibly arise.

In 2012, the European headquarters of the Fo Guang Shan monastic order opened in France, near Paris. It was the largest Buddhist temple in Europe at that time. The Plum Village Tradition school of Buddhism was developed in France with the Plum Village Monastery located in the Dordogne.

Hinduism
Hinduism is a minority religion followed in France by 0.25% of total population, mainly by Indians and Sri Lankans, in whom Tamils community forms a major group in the country. Hinduism is most influential in the French Overseas department of Réunion where estimates of practicing Hindus vary from 6.7% to 10.7%. and most of the large towns have a functioning Hindu temple.

Though being in very small number, the Hindu culture has deeply influenced the society of France by Yoga, Meditation and in recent times organizations like ISKCON have played a major role. Notably, French-Indian Mirra Alfassa known to her followers as The Mother or La Mère founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and was highly influential on the philosophy of Integral Yoga.

Paganism
Paganism, in the sense of Contemporary paganism, in France included a broad variety of traditions and movements. As with neopaganism in other countries, these traditions sit somewhere on a gradient, with one side represented by reconstructionist religious movements and on the other side by a variety of witchcraft and shamanic traditions with a focus on personal revelation. Pagans and pagan movements often blend elements of both influences. The term "pagan" (Latin paganus), used by Christians to define those who maintained polytheistic religions, originally meant "rural person, countryfolk, civilian", as a dweller of a pagus (rural district).

The more identitary and reconstructionist Pagan movements are the majority and are represented by Celtic Druidry and Germanic Heathenry, while Wicca is an example of a non-identitary Pagan movement. Polytheism, nature worship, animism and pantheism are common features in Pagan theology. Rituals take place in both public and in private domestic settings. Academic research has placed the Pagan movement along a spectrum, with eclecticism on one end and polytheistic reconstructionism on the other.

All Pagan movements place great emphasis on the divinity of nature as a primary source of divine will, and on humanity's membership of the natural world, bound in kinship to all life and the Earth itself. The animistic aspects of Pagan theology assert that all things have a soul - not just humans or organic life - so this bond is held with mountains and rivers as well as trees and wild animals. As a result, Pagans believe the essence of their spirituality is both ancient and timeless, regardless of the age of specific religious movements. Places of natural beauty are therefore treated as sacred and ideal for ritual, like the nemetons of the ancient Celts.

Many Pagans hold that different lands (and/or cultures) have their own natural religion, with many legitimate interpretations of divinity, and therefore reject religious exclusivism.

While the Pagan community has tremendous variety in political views spanning the whole of the political spectrum, environmentalism is often a common feature.

Other religions
Groups such as Antoinism, Aumism, Christian Science, Invitation to Life, Raelism, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, have over 1000 members, whereas the Unification Church has approximately 400 members. In 1995, France created the first French parliamentary commission on cult activities, which led to a report registering a number of religious groups considered socially disruptive and/or dangerous. Some of these groups have been banned, including the Children of God.

According to the French sociologist Régis Dericquebourg, in 2003 the main small religious minorities were the Jehovah's Witnesses (130,000, though the European Court on Human Rights reckoned the number at 249,918 "regular and occasional" Jehovah's Witnesses), Adventists, Evangelicals, Mormons (31,000 members), and Soka Gakkai Buddhists.

According to the 2005 Association of Religion Data Archives data there were close to 4,400 Baháʼís in France.

According to the 2007 edition of the Quid, other notable religious minorities included the New Apostolic Church (20,000), the Universal White Brotherhood (20,000), Sukyo Mahikari (15,000–20,000), the New Acropolis (10,000), the Universal Alliance (1,000), and the Grail Movement (950).

Growth of Islam and conflict with laïcité
In Paris and the surrounding Île-de-France region, French Muslims tend to be more educated and religious, and the vast majority of them consider themselves loyal to France. Among Muslims in Paris in the early 2010s, 77% disagreed when asked whether violence is an acceptable moral response for a noble cause or not; 73% said that they were loyal to France; and 18% believed homosexuality to be acceptable.

In 2015, there were 2,500 mosques in France, up from 2,000 in 2011. In 2015, Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, said the number should be doubled to accommodate the large and growing population of French Muslims.

Financing the construction of mosques was a problematic issue for a long time; French authorities were concerned that foreign capital could be used to acquire influence in France, and so in the late 1980s it was decided to favour the formation of a "French Islam", though the 1905 law on religions forbids the funding of religious groups by the state. According to Salah Bariki, advisor to the mayor of Marseille in 2001, at a Koranic school in Nièvre, only three percent of the books were written in French, and everything was financed from abroad. She supported the public's participation in financing an Islamic cultural centre in Marseille to encourage Muslims to develop and use French learning materials in order to thwart foreign indoctrination. Even secular Muslims and members of civil society were to be represented by the centre. Local authorities have financed the construction of mosques, sometimes without minarets, and called them Islamic "cultural centres" or municipal halls rented to "civil associations". In the case of the plans to build the Mosque of Marseille, due to protests and a tribunal decision by the National Rally, the National Republican Movement, and the Mouvement pour la France, the rent of an 8000 m² terrain for the mosque was increased from €300/year to €24,000/year and the renting period was reduced from 99 to 50 years.

Charlie Hebdo shooting
France came to an uproar in January 2015, when eight writers and cartoonists were shot dead by two terrorists who raided the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. For years, it had been threatened by Muslim fundamentalists for publishing cartoons criticizing Muhammad. While condemnation of this attack was unanimous in the West and among the internationally recognized governments of the Muslim world, some militants approved, stating that it was right to kill those who insulted Muhammad.

Freedom of religion
In 2023, the country was scored 3 out of 4 for religious freedom by Freedom House.

title: Religion in France


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Mel Owen

Melanie "Mel" Owen (also Healy and Beale) is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Tamzin Outhwaite. Mel was introduced by executive producer Matthew Robinson and made her first appearance on 19 October 1998. Outhwaite made her departure on 12 April 2002. Outhwaite's return to the series was announced in October 2017 and she returned on 9 January 2018. The actress chose to leave the soap again in July 2019 and her final episode aired on 14 November 2019 when Mel was killed-off. Outhwaite proved popular in the role, winning multiple awards and critical acclaim for her portrayal of Mel as the character became prominent in the show.

During her original tenure in the soap, Mel was featured in high-profile storylines, such as a wedding to local businessman Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) to mark the Millennium Eve celebrations on New Year's Eve 1999; a problematic and dangerous marriage to criminal Steve Owen (Martin Kemp); a one-night stand with Steve's nemesis Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden); and a close friendship with Phil's estranged girlfriend Lisa Shaw (Lucy Benjamin). Writers also placed Mel at the centre of a storyline marking the show's increase to four weekly episodes in 2001, when she is kidnapped by her ex-lover Dan Sullivan (Craig Fairbrass) after Steve and Phil conspired to frame him for the latter's shooting (see Who Shot Phil?).

Throughout her time on the show, especially since her 2018 return, when Mel became more of a villain, she has become somewhat more "wicked" and has a harder edge, when compared to her early appearances. In her second stint on the show, Mel was included in storylines such as working for crime boss Ciara Maguire (Denise McCormack); colluding with Phil against Ciara's ex-husband Aidan (Patrick Bergin); a relationship with Phil's rival Jack Branning (Scott Maslen); an engagement and marriage with former policeman Ray Kelly (Sean Mahon); covering up Ray's murder after he was shot dead by her son Hunter (Charlie Winter) for attempting to kill her; and trying to stop Hunter from going to prison and later harboring him when he escapes, which culminates with Hunter being shot dead by the police after he held her hostage and nearly shot Phil and Lisa's daughter Louise (Tilly Keeper) after shooting her brother Ben (Max Bowden). Following Hunter's death, Mel developed a feud with Phil's wife Sharon (Letitia Dean) and blackmailed her after learning of her affair with Louise's boyfriend Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters). This concludes with Mel being involved in a high-speed car chase with Sharon upon attempting to expose her affair with Keanu to Phil, only to end up subjugated to a vehicle collision that results in Sharon rescuing Mel, before Mel is then killed after walking into the path of an incoming lorry.

1998–2002
Mel Healy had a troubled past: she owned a business in Camden that went bankrupt, was abused by a boyfriend, and was estranged from her family for some years - traveling around the Greek Islands before ultimately reuniting with her brother, vicar Alex Healy (Richard Driscoll), and their father Jeff (Leslie Schofield) in Walford from October 1998.

When she first arrived in the square, Mel started working for local businessman Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt). They soon begin dating and Ian later requests Mel to help with his children; Mel finds the children hard to deal with at first but grows to love them. Ian and Mel plan to marry, but Mel gets cold feet – realising she doesn't truly love Ian. When Ian discovers this, he claims that his daughter Lucy (Casey Anne Rothery) is dying of cancer in a desperate bid to retain his romantic bond with Mel; she gives in and later agrees to marry him. The pair marry on New Year's Eve 1999, in a double wedding with fellow neighbors Barry Evans (Shaun Williamson) and Natalie Evans (Lucy Speed). At their reception, however, Mel discovers a letter that Ian threw away – which officially gave Lucy the all-clear; she confronts Ian and, after he admits to lying about his daughter's health, dumps him just as the clock strikes midnight and the new millennium begins.

After divorcing Ian and the exposure of his fabrication about Lucy's health, Mel starts a relationship with local publican Dan Sullivan (Craig Fairbrass). However, this ends when Mel learns from her best-friend Lisa Shaw (Lucy Benjamin) that Dan reported her boyfriend Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) reported him to the police about his motor scam. When Mel causes Phil to learn about what Dan did and gets revenge, Dan vows to get payback on Mel and starts harassing her - until her love interest, Steve Owen (Martin Kemp), comes to her rescue. Soon afterwards, Mel and Steve start a relationship after he forces Phil's cousin Billy Mitchell (Perry Fenwick) to help build her trust on him. They soon marry at the start of March 2001, despite Steve learning that Mel slept with Phil in a one-night stand on Christmas Night 2000. Just as Steve and Mel commence their honeymoon, Phil gets shot by a mystery assailant (see "Who Shot Phil?") and Steve is the prime suspect. Mel suspects it is him but he protests his innocence. Phil recovers from the shooting and confronts the culprit: Lisa. Steve forgives Mel and on Phil's instruction, he decides to frame Dan for the crime. Dan is wrongly imprisoned for Phil's attempted murder, and after his release, believing that it was Steve who actually shot him, kidnaps Mel in revenge. Dan demands a large sum of money and Steve grows desperate. During her few days of captivity, Dan tells Mel about Steve's dodgy dealings and criminal activities. Phil comes to her rescue and Dan flees. Mel takes time out after burning down her and Steve's club, the E20, as revenge for Steve's lies. She briefly dates Barry's half-brother Nathan Williams (Doug Allen), but later reconciles with Steve after he manages to woo her back into their marriage. However, when Steve's feud with Phil sparks out of control, he proposes to Mel that they start anew and plan to emigrate to America with Lisa, her boyfriend Mark Fowler (Todd Carty), and Lisa's daughter, Louise (Rachel Cox). However, Mark can't go having been denied a Visa due to his HIV and Lisa is torn as to what to do, the plan is falling apart but Steve absconds with Louise but Phil follows them and a car chase ensues; Steve swerves and crashes. Phil rescues Louise and is about to go back for Steve but is too late – the car explodes with Steve still inside, killing him.

Mel is heartbroken when Steve's web of deceit and lies are uncovered after his death. She discovers that Steve was having an affair with Phil's sister, Sam Mitchell (Kim Medcalf), and that Steve sold their club and house behind her back. On Lisa's wedding day to Mark, Mel is arrested for drug connections after she is implicated in Steve's drug smuggling; Mel had unwittingly signed Steve's paperwork, linking the drug smuggling back to her. Facing a long spell in prison, Phil bails her for £30,000 when she discovers that she is pregnant with Steve's child. She then discovers that Lisa was responsible for shooting Phil and that both knew it was not Steve, despite her continued suspicions. Feeling betrayed by everyone, she toasts herself before going to Portugal so Phil loses the £30,000. Later that year, Lisa and Louise join Mel in Portugal.

2018–2019
After nearly sixteen years away, Mel returns to Walford as she is working for her sister-in-law, Ciara Maguire (Denise McCormack), to track down money and jewellery that was stolen from Ciara in a recent robbery that took place in the area, and Ciara is keeping Mel's son, Hunter Owen (Charlie Winter), from her until Mel finds the money. Mel eventually discovers that Phil’s wife, Sharon Mitchell (Letitia Dean) has the money, Mel double-crosses her so the money is returned and Mel is able to see Hunter again. Ciara does not have the full amount, so in retaliation, she vindictively tells Hunter that his father Steve died in a car explosion, not from a heart attack as Mel had claimed and that he was a villain who killed Saskia Duncan (Deborah Sheridan-Taylor). Mel is forced to tell Hunter that Steve killed Saskia in self-defence and that Steve framed Matthew Rose (Joe Absolom) and Steve’s death was a result of a car chase. Mel later compares Hunter to Steve and asks for them to start again. Mel decides to remain in Walford, accepting Sharon's offer to re-open the nightclub, which she agrees to restore to its old name, the E20, in tribute to Steve, to keep Hunter happy. Jack Branning (Scott Maslen) pursues Mel but Hunter sabotages Jack's car to prevent them from going to France. Before the club's re-opening, Hunter finds out Phil was involved in Steve's death and Hunter blames Phil, so he has sex with Louise (now played by Tilly Keeper) in the office, knowing Phil will see it on CCTV. Phil is enraged and threatens to attack Hunter with a baseball bat but Mel seduces Phil and threatens to show Sharon the CCTV footage of their kiss to stop him from hurting Hunter. Mel and Jack argue after Mel tries to reunite Billy and Honey Mitchell (Emma Barton) by claiming that Billy has moved on. The argument leads to passion and Jack and Mel have sex. Ian decides he wants to marry Mel again and constantly tries to woo her, including offering Hunter a job at his restaurant. However, his efforts always go in vain. Following the re-opening of E20, Mel offers a cleaning contract to Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace), her cousin Stacey (Lacey Turner), their grandmother Mo Harris (Laila Morse) and Stacey’s mother Jean (Gillian Wright).

Jack later proposes to Mel, and just as she is about to accept, her ex-husband, Ray Kelly (Sean Mahon) turns up. It is revealed that Ray worked as an undercover cop and his relationship with Mel became strained due to his increasingly secretive behaviour, ultimately leading to their divorce. Mel confronts Ray at home, where her feelings for him resurface and she sleeps with him, causing Jack to break up with her. Although Ray insists that he will be there for her and Hunter and decides that he wants to remarry Mel, Mel becomes paranoid again and she frequently enlists Jack's help to gather more information about Ray. She finds out that Ray is a millionaire, much to her dismay. Furthermore, he goes by the alias, Simon. She is later stunned when she discovers that Ray is married to another woman called Maddie, and he has a son with her. She befriends Maddie, who thinks that Ray is Simon. Maddie, a fitness trainer, meets up with Mel to train her, but Mel reveals the truth about Ray. Mel and Maddie go to a house, where they think one of Ray's girlfriends lives. They pretend to be two police officers and are stunned when the woman turns out to be a teenager. It is revealed that the young woman they are talking to is Ray's daughter from yet another marriage. Mel and Maddie meet up with his third wife, Nicola, who is equally shocked at Ray's betrayal. Mel convinces Nicola and Maddie to join her in her plan to expose Ray on their wedding day, New Year's Day, 2019. They agree, but when the day arrives, Ray discovers Mel's scheme and strangles her with her wedding veil. Thinking he has murdered Mel, Ray stashes her body into a closet and arrives at the church. He is stunned when Mel turns up and declares that she still wants to go ahead with the wedding, in order to obtain Ray's money. Otherwise, she will show everyone her bruises that Ray inflicted. Ray and Mel get married, but just as they walk out of the church, Ray is confronted by Maddie and Nicola. Moments later, the police arrive and arrest Ray for bigamy. Ray escapes, later, Ray bundles an aggressive Hunter into the boot of his car, driving to Walford Common, where Mel appears knowing he has her son and confronts him with a gun. Following a heated discussion, Mel finally finds Hunter bound and gagged on the ground, then, Ray coming at them both with a shovel, they, panicking, quickly get into a car. Mel reverses into Ray and buries him, believing him to be dead; he grabs her leg and starts throttling her again. To stop him murdering his mother, Hunter shoots Ray, killing him.

Hunter is arrested and Mel enters a lengthy legal battle to release her son from prison, though to no avail; he is imprisoned and Mel visits him. She becomes more reclusive and stressed without Hunter and tries to avenge Hunter's imprisonment by blaming Jack. Mel is informed by the police that Hunter will be transferred to a prison in the North of England for his safety, before being told that during a crash involving the prison van escorting him, he has escaped. Hunter eventually returns to Walford, and she conceals him in a derelict flat, where she tries to treat his wounds sustained in the crash. She plans to obtain fake passports and return to Portugal for a fresh start. When Hunter is healed, Mel smuggles him in the boot of her car and prepares to leave when Lisa returns, wanting Mel's help to smuggle Louise and her fiancé, Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters), out of the country; they agree for the five of them to move to Portugal. Mel learns that Hunter has escaped the car and taken her gun, Mel becomes panicked and tries to find him. In her search, she tries Jack's house, since Hunter wanted revenge on him for his imprisonment, and finds Jack's partner, Denise Fox (Diane Parish), unconscious on the floor after Hunter attacks her. She alerts the paramedics and goes to find Jack in The Queen Vic; she sees landlady Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) escorting him to the barrel store and realises that Hunter has ordered Linda to bring him there. Mel then cajoles Hunter in handing her the gun and they try to sneak him out of the pub unseen. When he is spotted, Hunter holds the pub hostage and shoots Ben Mitchell (Max Bowden); Mel tries to talk to him with no success and he takes Louise (now played by Tilly Keeper) hostage in Albert Square with armed police surrounding them. Hunter shoots Keanu and Mel urges him to stop his actions; Hunter threatens Louise's life; he is then shot dead by a police marksman and Mel cradles his body, devastated.

In the following weeks, Mel struggles in the aftermath and criticises Lisa for complaining about Louise when she is still alive. By way of apology for Ben and Louise, Mel takes flowers to the Mitchell home, where she keenly spots Keanu's overreaction to Lola Pearce (Danielle Harold) knocking a pregnant Sharon's stomach and, witnessing a secret conversation between Sharon and Keanu, she realises that Keanu is the father of Sharon's baby, not Phil. This follows Phil trying to disrupt Hunter's funeral and Sharon insulting Hunter during a row with Mel. Mel swears to Lisa, on Hunter's memory, vengeance against the Mitchells. She begins to blackmail Sharon with the knowledge of her baby's paternity. She asks for £20,000 and a villa in Portugal, threatening Sharon by using her son Dennis (Bleu Landau) to get to her. Over the coming weeks, Mel heightens her blackmail towards Sharon, who persuades Louise and Keanu to move in with Mel and Lisa. Mel sends Sharon away to find her a villa in Portugal for the four of them. Mel sells the club to Ruby Allen (Louisa Lytton) as well as getting Sharon to sell her share, which she eventually does. However, she tells Mel that she knows that Mel helped Hunter when he escaped prison, shocking her and leaving her unsettled. Mel continues getting closer to Louise's unborn baby, which frightens Lisa. Mel is upset when she finds out that Louise and Keanu do not want to move to Portugal but manages to manipulate Lisa and tells her that Sharon's unborn baby is not Phil's. Later, Mel looks at Hunter's old things and puts Louise's baby scan with it saying “Grandma Loves You”. Mel continues to get closer to Louise and buys her a Citroën C3 Aircross for her 18th birthday. At the pub, Mel is shocked when Louise calls Sharon ‘her second mum’ and Mel pretends to poison Dennis when Sharon tells her to get over Hunter’s death. Mel plans a party for Louise’s 18th and Sharon’s 50th, hinting that she will reveal everything there. Lisa later confronts Mel about her getting close to Louise and Mel hits her. On the day of the party, Lisa suggests that Mel sees a therapist but Mel refuses, telling her she’s not mad like herself and tells Lisa it would’ve been better if she had killed herself. Mel leaves a voicemail to Phil, who is away, telling him that Sharon has sold the business; he subsequently decides to return on the next flight. Unknown to Mel, Sharon is furious and tells Keanu they need a plan as they both rush to the club to confront Mel, only to walk into her party where Louise is already there. Mel gloats at Sharon and is confronted by Lisa in the office, who unknown to Mel, has planned something with Sharon. Mel threatens to phone Phil and tell him everything. An altercation takes place and Mel’s phone is smashed which results in both Mel and Sharon rushing to the airport to greet Phil first. Whilst driving, they encounter each other and Mel decides to phone Billy and tell him about Sharon and Keanu, telling him to put it on speaker and next to the microphone so that everyone at the party can hear, including Louise. However, she doesn’t manage to announce it to everyone as she crashes into a broken down car. Mel's car overturns as Sharon looks on and the partygoers, including Lisa, listen in, horrified. Mel, still alive, and semi conscious inside the wreckage, believes that she can hear Hunter's voice calling to her. Sharon manages to pull Mel from the wreckage before her car explodes, but Mel keeps hearing Hunter's voice in her head. After Sharon pleads with her to end the feud, Mel accuses her of stopping her from going 'back to Hunter' and paces towards the car, where she believes Hunter to be. As she stumbles towards the burning car, Sharon looks on in horror as a lorry appears through the smoke from the wreckage, hitting Mel and killing her instantly. Sharon, Louise and Lisa are left horrified.

Lisa seeks revenge for Mel’s death by telling Phil he is not the father of Sharon’s baby. A few weeks later, Louise gives her daughter the middle name ‘Melanie’ in honour of her. On Christmas Day, Mel’s meddling finally comes to fruition as Phil discovers Sharon’s affair and throws her out as well as orchestrating Keanu’s murder. Mel is mentioned by Sharon in February 2020 following Dennis’s death, as she contemplates how she must have felt following Hunter’s death.

Background and casting
In 1998, EastEnders acquired a new executive producer, Matthew Robinson. Robinson was dubbed "the axeman" in the British press, after a large proportion of the EastEnders cast either quit, or were culled, shortly after Robinson's introduction. It was reported that Robinson hoped the changes would attract more viewers and "spice up [the soap's fictional setting of] Walford".

To counteract the large number of departures, Robinson introduced several new characters, among them Melanie Healy played by Tamzin Outhwaite. In an interview with website Walfordweb, Matthew Robinson has stated that Melanie was "dreamt up to supplement the 'totty' contingent – running thin at the time". Robinson stated that Tamzin Outhwaite was "a shoo-in – and not just because of her beautiful blonde hair. Within a minute of her walking into auditions, hundreds already having trooped in and out of the door, I knew we had our star." Outhwaite has stated that she was given the role without having to do a screen-test. Mel was brought into the serial as a member of the already established Healy family, joining her brother Reverend Alex Healy (Richard Driscoll) and father Jeff Healy (Leslie Schofield) in October 1998. Initially Mel's relationship with Alex and Jeff was not disclosed to viewers, and it was several weeks after her introduction that Mel actually came face-to-face with her brother on-screen; it was revealed that she had been estranged from them for some time.

Characterisation
Author Kate Lock has described Mel as free-spirited, exuberant, a beauty, wild-at-heart, and "a restless soul with a troubled past". In his assessment of the character, author Rupert Smith surmised Mel as "a nice girl with surprisingly bad taste in men."

Mel has been dubbed as a chameleon, and Outhwaite has suggested that she liked to bring variation to Mel's characterisation: "When I arrived I liked the idea Mel was feisty and strong. I didn't want her turning into a wimpy character like so many women in soaps. You know, they're either bitches or they're slags or they're victims. I wanted to give Mel a bit of everything. Every woman has all those elements to their character. It's just working out where they come and go, and I don't think that's lack of continuity; I think that's a three-dimensional character."

Outhwaite has suggested that the wardrobe department struggled to come up with a static identity for Melanie at first; however, this she felt turned out to be a good thing: "What I really liked about it was, when we started looking for costumes [for Mel], the wardrobe department couldn't quite fit where I was going. I'd wear Army pants and trainers some days and then jeans some other days and then I'd be all suited and booted at other times. I said, 'That's what girls do! That's how I am. Some days I'm in scruffs and some days I'm really dressed up. It would be really nice to have a character who's not so predictable.'" Rosalind Powell, head of the EastEnders' wardrobe design team in 2000, said that Mel had "colourful and stylish" wardrobe from retailers such as Kookai and Oasis. Powell added, "Although she's a barmaid, she can still afford to wear nice clothes, she just doesn't have a very big wardrobe."

Millennium Eve episodes
An unlikely romance was scripted into Mel's narrative when she began dating her boss Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt). The pairing has been described as one of "the most unbelievable soap couples", but Outwaite defended it in 1999, saying "I know I've fancied some not particularly attractive men in my time, but I don't think Ian is actually ugly. He has a vulnerable side and that's what is attractive. When he is being all hot-headed and gets above himself then I personally don't like Ian. But when he is being vulnerable I can see the attraction. People talk to me about it all the time. I have taxi drivers telling me I could do much better than Ian. The other day someone shouted that I should go back with [Mel's former fling] Steve Owen. It's incredible, they'd rather [Mel] went out with [Steve who is] a murderer than with [Ian, who is] a hard-working father raising three children." Their relationship was the focus of the storyline that aired to mark the Millennium celebrations, when Ian emotionally blackmailed Mel into marrying him by claiming that his daughter was dying of cancer; storylines in the latter part of 1999 focused on the build-up to a joint Millennium wedding on New Year's Eve 1999 with Barry Evans (Shaun Williamson) and Natalie Evans (Lucy Speed). The wedding went as planned; however, Mel and Ian's marriage ended hours later as the clock struck midnight to signify the beginning of the New Year after Mel discovered Ian's lie. The Millennium Eve episodes drew in 20.89 million viewers – the biggest soap audience since the character Tiffany Mitchell (Martine McCutcheon) was killed off in EastEnders precisely one year earlier (New Year's Eve 1998). An EastEnders spokeswoman commented: "This is a remarkable endorsement of the power of EastEnders that over 20 million viewers chose to see the Millennium celebrations in Albert Square." The episodes were also broadcast on screens in London's Trafalgar Square, a typical “haunt for New Year's Eve revelers”.

Relationship with Steve Owen
A more long-running pairing was featured between Mel and the character Steve Owen (Martin Kemp), who was portrayed as a villain. It was an on/off romance beginning shortly after both characters' introduction in 1998. In an interview in June 2000, Kemp discussed the relationship between Steve and Mel: "Steve's convinced Mel will make his life complete. She kept him going during all the bad times and now he's determined to have her. It's true of a lot of guys who get into trouble, they hang their hat on one idea and that keeps them sane [...] there's a driving force that kept them going while they were [in prison]. And often that's a woman. You know from those tender moments when Mel came to visit Steve [in prison] that she was the thing that kept him going, and he won't stop til he gets her back." Eventually the couple were shown to marry in the soap in March 2001, despite a revelation that Mel had strayed with Steve's nemesis Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden). Tamzin Outhwaite explained, "With Ian, Mel was the one who didn't want to go through with it. This time around Mel is the one who is apprehensive, hoping Steve will be there for her. If he isn't, she has no reason to stay in Walford. This really is make or break time for her." The wedding night was a precursor to one of the soap's most publicised storylines, "Who Shot Phil?", where Phil was gunned down by an unknown assailant and, due to Mel's infidelity, Steve became one of the prime suspects for the murder attempt, though he transpired to be a red herring. Discussing Mel and Steve's wedding, Outhwaite said, "Even though this wedding with Steve has got as much controversy as Mel's last one [with Ian], it feels more true. The characters seem more suited and it's not a big, white wedding, it's a low-key register office thing." 17 million viewers watched the wedding.

In August 2001, EastEnders began airing a 4th weekly episode. The storyline to mark the occasion centred around Mel, her husband Steve, and her former lovers Phil and Dan Sullivan (Craig Fairbrass). After Phil and Steve wrongfully framed Dan for Phil's shooting, Dan sought revenge by kidnapping Mel and demanding a ransom. An EastEnders insider reportedly told The Mirror, "This has be [sic] one of the most dramatic storylines we have ever filmed. Dan has vowed to get even with Phil and Steve for framing him over the shooting. Kidnapping Mel kills two birds with one stone. Although Mel and Phil have had their differences, he still harbours feelings for her." As part of the storyline, Outhwaite, as Mel, was tied up to a radiator in a council flat. Outhwaite commented, "They offered to untie my wrists between scenes, but I said no so I could feel what it was really like. My wrists were raw by the end of it and I was exhausted, but that was the challenge I wanted."

Although Mel was rescued, the events on the storyline had ramifications for Mel and Steve's marriage after Dan told Mel that Steve had been unfaithful. This led to the temporary screen exit of Outhwaite who had been permitted time off from filming to make another TV series. This was part of a lucrative deal that Outhwaite made with the BBC, where Outhwaite reportedly agreed to remain on EastEnders for a further year if she was allowed to film other TV shows. In the storyline, Mel ended her marriage with Steve and departed after torching his club, ignoring his sobbing and begging. According to Outhwaite, "Steve was a rat and fully deserved it." Mel returned after two months away and began negotiating divorce, however the divorcing was brief as Steve was killed off in the serial in March 2002 after Kemp decided to leave. His death storyline centred upon his on-going feud with Phil.

Departure (2002)
Following Martin Kemp's decision to quit EastEnders, Outhwaite announced she was quitting the soap in the autumn of 2001, stating, "I'm not sure what was left for Mel to do after she had been kidnapped, been married twice, burnt down a club and slept with her best friend's boyfriend [...] To be honest with you, Mel's role in EastEnders has come to a kind of natural end. I always said I'd go when I felt that the character had run her course, and I'm going to leave when my contract runs out next year [...] Martin and I are in very similar situations with our characters. We came in at a similar time, and now it looks like we'll leave at a similar time, too. Mel and Steve had some kind of aura, a chemistry, that was unique. I was really proud of it." She added, "I'll always be indebted to EastEnders for providing me with a wonderful start to my career on television and the opportunity to play a character like Mel has been fabulous. I felt it was time to move on and try on a new coat – new characters, new challenges." EastEnders' executive producer John Yorke said of Outhwaite's departure, "Tamzin has created one of the most-loved characters and (with Martin Kemp) one half of the most-admired on-screen couple in EastEnders since the show started. She has been fantastic to work with and we wish her all the luck in her career." Yorke added that the character would be welcome back any time.

Mel's exit storyline was linked to Steve's death, and Outhwaite claimed that viewers would be gripped by the storyline right up until her own exit a few months after Steve's. She commented, "Mel is relived by Steve's death. Mel acts brave, but inside she is breaking. She is given a necklace of black pearls on the day Steve dies. She falsely believes Phil was involved in the death but can't prove it. He has been nothing but trouble for her and she won't try to build bridges now [...] Mel looks brave on the outside but inside she's cracking up." In the on-screen events, Mel's anger turns to devastation when Phil informs her that Steve had been having sex with his sister Sam Mitchell (Kim Medcalf). After being arrested over Steve's money laundering and discovering she was pregnant with Steve's baby, Mel confronted everyone who had wronged her before leaving Walford. At the time, Outhwaite stated that her final scenes were the hardest that she'd ever filmed. Tony Stewart, critic for The Mirror suggested that Mel's exit in April 2002 was thrilling and described it as "a devastating story of betrayal and her ultimate revenge [as] one by one her friends desert her." Stewart praised Mel's final scene with the following description: "When she faces her last exit at Victoria Coach Station, there is a glint in her eye as Mel looks at the destination board and speaks on her mobile. 'Pick a number for me,' she says. 'One to 20. Great. Thank you.' And with that she is gone... but never forgotten."

Reintroduction (2018)
Outhwaite stated, after leaving the show, that she might return to the character if the time was right. In 2010 she commented that a return would be unlikely as the character did not have links in the current cast, and that, in any case, she had never been asked back, stating: "People always ask me, but I've never been asked! It looks like I'm turning it down on a yearly basis, but I'm not. They've never asked me! So they don't want me back for one and I don't have any family left on the show. There's nobody on the Square she knows, I don't even think any of Mel's friends are still in it... I could walk down the market and be an extra, I suppose! [...] She doesn't really know anyone apart from Ian Beale and Phil Mitchell. So unless she was coming back to see one of them..."

On 24 October 2017, the show's producers announced that Mel would be returning to the serial in 2018. Outhwaite, who billed Mel as "a strong independent woman", returned to filming in November 2017. Yorke, who was appointed executive consultant in June 2017, asked Outhwaite to reprise the role. The actress felt privileged to be invited back to the show and called playing Mel again "perfect". Outhwaite billed Mel as "a strong independent woman" upon her return and believed there are "lots more stories to tell" with the character. She commented, "EastEnders is in my DNA and I always knew deep down that someday I would revisit Mel." Yorke said he was "thrilled and flattered" to have Outhwaite reprise the role and looked forward to exploring her absence and "who Melanie Owen is now". He also promised an "incredible" storyline for Mel when she returns and said it would "awaken a lot of old ghosts, some great memories, and a whole new series of adventures too". On 22 December 2017, it was announced that Charlie Winter had been cast in the role of Hunter Owen, the son of Mel and Steve. Hunter returns alongside Mel. Mel returned on-screen in the closing moments of the episode broadcast on 9 January 2018.

Departure (2019)
In July 2019, it was announced that Outhwaite had opted to quit the role again, and Mel would depart during the year. The actress originally signed a year-long contract and planned to leave at its conclusion. However, she remained on the soap for an additional year before choosing to leave. Outhwaite explained that she wanted to pursue other roles after creating "good memories" of being in EastEnders again. Executive producer Jon Sen expressed his gratitude towards Outhwaite, who he dubbed an "incredible talent", for reprising the role, adding that she "[allowed] EastEnders fans the chance to see one of Walford's most popular characters take centre stage once more."

Producers created a storyline leading up to Mel’s departure, in that she became involved in the high-profile affair between characters Sharon Mitchell (Letitia Dean) and Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters) after Hunter's death. A feud between Sharon and Mel started in September 2019 and played out towards her departure. The feud has become popular by fans on social media such as Twitter. A trailer was released on 1 November 2019, further promoting the feud and a dramatic car chase between the pair, which mirrors the way Mel's husband, Steve, was indirectly killed by Sharon's husband, Phil in 2002. Mel was killed off on 14 November after a major stunt, involving Sharon.

Reception
BBC News claimed in 2000 that Tamzin Outhwaite was one of EastEnders' most popular stars and Mel was described as one of the most popular characters on the show. During her stint it was reported that the BBC offered to increase her salary various times to entice her to stay with EastEnders with suggestions that she was the highest-paid British soap star. She was awarded 'Sexiest Female' at the British Soap Awards for three years running and 'Best Newcomer' at the National TV Awards. Outhwaite has discussed her popularity: "When I came in as the vicar's sister, I had no idea Mel would be such a big character and the audience would take to her so quickly. I was surprised as I thought she was a bit plain and a flirt. But no matter what Mel does – going out with Ian, Dan, Steve, Phil – people still like her. Women wanted to be her mate and blokes wanted her as a girlfriend." Outhwaite was reportedly told to tone down her performances as Mel in 2000, when her love scenes were branded "too realistic for family viewing." Viewers were only shown a censored version of her love scene with Dan Sullivan. Tamzin stated, "I was told that this was to be a scene in which I really wanted Dan and that it should be full on but because it was before the watershed they thought it was too much."

The lead up to Mel and Ian's Millennium wedding included a hen/stag night celebration episode, which was filmed on-location in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The episode evoked criticism by the Broadcasting Standards Commission for its inclusion of "almost relentless drunken and promiscuous behaviour, sexual innuendo and drug-taking, before the watershed", which included Mel having to kiss various strangers. The BBC defended the episode, claiming that its content would have "come as no surprise to viewers" and adding that the depiction of this behaviour conformed to an EastEnders tradition – that questionable conduct "only leads to further trouble...One character's quest for drugs led to embarrassment and nausea and a drinking binge led to the calling off of [Barry and Natalie’s] wedding while the prospects for [Mel and Ian's] became bleaker."

In 2019, Laura-Jayne Tyler from Inside Soap praised Mel's returning, writing, "When Mel was first brought back to EastEnders, we were skeptical. Did we really care about her enough 16 years ago to give a flip now? But, if there is anything actress Tamzin Outhwaite has brought to the show, it's the ability to make us care about a character again. Tired as we are of hideous Hunter, he's given his mum a reason to channel her inner super-bitch. All hail, Queen Owen!" In 2020, Sara Wallis and Ian Hyland from The Daily Mirror placed Mel 18th on their ranked list of the Best EastEnders characters of all time, calling her a "vicar's sister with an unholy taste in men".

title: Mel Owen


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Jean-Marie Perrot

The abbé Jean-Marie Perrot, in Breton Yann-Vari Perrot (3 September 1877 in Plouarzel, Finistère – 12 December 1943 in Scrignac), was a priest and Breton nationalist who was assassinated by the Communist resistance. He was the founder of the Breton Catholic movement Bleun-Brug.

Early life
Perrot was raised in a provincial Breton-speaking family. After studying at the Institut des Frères des Écoles in Guingamp in 1889, he expressed a desire to become a priest. He left to study humanities at the Pont-Croix Youth Seminary. He spent one year in Brest with the 19th infantry regiment, then enrolled in the Quimper Seminary. He became vicar of Saint-Vougay in 1904, where he undertook the patronage of Paotred Sant-Nouga, where he formed study circles, a choir, and a theatre troupe for the local youth. He is the uncle of Louis Lalouer.

Activism for the Breton language
Perrot founded Bleun-Brug (Heather Flower) in 1905, which soon absorbed the magazine Feiz ha Breiz (Faith and Brittany), which he edited after 1911. The aims of the organisation were:

 * to promote the Breton ideal in all three intellectual, political and economic arenas.
 * to contribute, as Catholics, to the return of Brittany to the full exercise of its traditional faith.

He was named vicar of Saint-Thégonnec in March 1914. On the outbreak of war he was called up at Lesneven on 5 August but he asked to leave to volunteer for the Groupe des Brancardiers Divisionnaires. He was decorated after World War I. After 1910, he played an important role in the Emsav, the Breton nationalist movement.

In 1920, he was named vicar of Plouguerneau. In 1922 Yves Floc'h, the future painter worked as his parson. Perrot patronised Michel Le Noblez and organised theatrical performances. Yves Floc'h painted the scenery for a play, and his gifts were noticed by the vicar. From 1932, Perrot's secretary was Herry Caouissin.

Perrot wrote countless articles and plays expressing his ideology, most notably in Feiz ha Breiz.

He was initially stationed in a conservative Saint-Vougay parish, but was transferred to the more leftist area of Scrignac in 1930 by the episcopal hierarchy, who disliked his political activities. On 8 July 1941 he became part of the group of writers who adopted a unified orthography of the Breton language.

World War II
With the outbreak of war, hostility towards Perrot in Scrignac grew, as he was suspected of pro-German sympathies.

On 16 October 1939 telegraphic lines in the region of Huelgoat were cut. Perrot was accused by authorities of sabotage. The gendarmes searched his estate twice and interrogated him, but he was released as he had an alibi. However, one gendarme publicly accused him of cutting the wires, and Perrot accused the gendarme of defamation. Afterwards, an enquiry established that a military prisoner was responsible for cutting the wires. At the request of the colonel of the Gendarmie of Quimper, the abbé dropped his accusation of defamation.

During the war, he continued to produce Feiz ha Breiz. Braving the ban by Adolphe Duparc on celebrating nationalist anniversaries during the occupation, he organised the members of Bleun-Brug in Tréguier on the 29 and 30 August to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of Duke Jean V of Brittany. In October 1942, he was named a member of the Comité Consultatif de Bretagne (CCB), a non-elected council put in place by Regional Prefect Jean Quénette to put forward proposals relating to Breton language and culture.

In July 1941, Perrot took part in the German-sponsored effort to unify the writing of Breton.

Perrot sympathised strongly with the collaborationist Breton National Party. When his parsonage was partly requisitioned by the Germans, Perrot was accused of assisting them. According to Henri Fréville, on 7 August 1943 Perrot was questioned about the movements of members of Bagadou Stourm, Breton nationalist stormtroopers allied to the Nazis, who had stopped at Scrignac. He was hospitable toward the Bagadou Stourm Youth, who were most active around Finistère, where leaders such as Yann Goulet and L'Haridon had been arrested by the French police but released by the Germans.

Assassination
On 12 December 1943, aged 66, the abbé was killed by Jean Thépaut, a member of the French Communist Party, after a series of denunciations of Perrot for alleged collaborationist activity.

Exploitation of memory
After Perrot's death, the collaborator Célestin Lainé recruited about sixty men whom he organised under the name Bezen Kadoudal. Ael Péresse, second in command to Laîné, suggested naming the group after Perrot and so it became Bezen Perrot instead.

Legacy
Abbé Perrot was laid to rest at the chapel of Coat-Quéau, in Scrignac. His memory is often celebrated on Easter Monday. His role of has been the source of much controversy about "the "Breton cause", notably between Ronan Caouissin and the director of the theatre troupe Ar Vro Bagan.

Unvaniez Koad Kev was a law association created to maintain his legacy. Since 1957, the association has been administered principally by Youenn Craff. Tepod Gwilhmod was president from 2001 to 2003. In 2005, a crisis arose over an attempted takeover by Gérard Hirel (French police officer, ex-member of the French far-right party "National Front"), Roland de la Morinière, and Loig Kervoaz, all members of Adsav. The current president and chaplain are Yann Sanseau and abbot Blanchard.

Publications

 * Alanik al Louarn. Pe "n'euz den fin n'en deuz e goulz". Pez c'hoari plijadurus rimet e daou Arvest, Brest, Moullerez "Ar c'hourrier", 1905
 * Buez ar zent, Ar Gwaziou, Morlaix, 1911
 * R. G. Berry, Eun nozveziad reo gwenn Translation from Welsh to Breton by Geraint Dyfnallt Owen and Jean-Marie Perrot of Noson o Farrug (One frosty night), (Plougerne, 1928). [Drama] Performed by Bleun-Brug theatre company inLesneven 1928. http://bibliotheque.idbe-bzh.org/document.php?id=eun-nozveziad-reo-gwenn-18682&l=fr
 * Special 30th anniversary edition 1936 of Ouvres Bretonnes: http://bibliotheque.idbe-bzh.org/data/cle_52/Bulletin_de_lUnion_des_Oeuvres_Bretonnes_1936_nA78_.pdf

title: Jean-Marie Perrot


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title: User talk:80.171.58.154