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The history of the separation of the sexes in French synagogues since the nineteenth century illustrates the fact that far from being an invariant, religious conflict on gender is linked to moments of empowerment, transnationalization and internal differentiation of religious fields. From the 1980s to the 1990s, the arrangement of the sexes in the synagogue became a symbolic marker of the internal borders of French Judaism. The return of mehitza (physical separation between the sexes to the synagogue) is used as a marker of orthodox authenticity in the competition between Consistory and independent orthodox synagogues, before women's access to egalitarian participation in the ritual becomes, Reaction, a marker of "non-orthodoxy" with the development of liberal synagogues and massorties in France. The present configuration contrasts with an earlier moment of religious politicization of the 19th century genre, where the new balconies for women in the synagogues symbolized Jewish religious modernity in relation to the French state and the majority society.