Hello! May we know which part of France you mods are from? Or just if you're all from Paris, or if there's diversity of French culture in your replies? Because I remember Thomas Astruc tweeting about Christmas not being seen as religious in France, while I'm French and where I'm from, it it seen as religious, so maybe that's just a Parisian opinion. (I agree with everything you said so far tho XD But it's just curiosity.)
We're a little from everywhere, some of us are from Paris or nearby, some from the South, others from French-speaking countries (or country in which a part of the population can speak French), we even have someone half-French half-American living in the US! 😊
We've discussed it together to kind of see the different points of views we had on the topic and did some researches as well. To be honest, most of us from the project don't view it particularly as religious independently of our location, and more as an "end of the year family gathering and gift exchange" celebration day. Obviously christians will also celebrate it in a religious way since it does have religious origins, but nowadays it's become more of a popular celebration here: most atheists in France celebrate it despite having no attachment to religion. It's probably linked to the dechristianisation that's being observed here too!
We also looked at how French medias on the topic present it, and they also refer to christmas as being nowadays a familial celebration or a largely non-religious celebration with christian origins. In ML's Christmas special, there's no religious signs and it's shown exactly as how atheists celebrate it here: an end of the year family gathering celebration, and they only showed the non-religious aspects of the celebration; it was probably included in the show because it's a huge part of the cultural landscape here (and I guess cause it's commercial).
To be honest the answer to the "is christmas seen as religious in France or not" question might depend a lot on people's own beliefs and religion in the country! We also looked up at statistics online (though not all sources give exactly the same numbers), and it appears that roughly half the population in France view christmas as religious and the other half as non-religious. But it's kind of hard to evaluate as what we found didn't take into account lots of parameters such as people's view on it depending on their beliefs, which in our opinion would be pretty important to consider.
All in all now it's an end of the year traditional celebration with christian origins that people are free to celebrate (or not) however they please in France! 😊