In French, laïcité is a French concept of a secular society, connoting the absence of religious involvement in government affairs as well as absence of government involvement in religious affairs. Although, during the twentieth century, it evolved to mean equal treatment of all religions, more restrictive interpretation of the term is being witnessed since 2004. Dictionaries ordinarily translate laïcité as secularity or secularism (the latter being the political system), although it is sometimes rendered in English as "laicity" or "laicism". In its strict and official acceptance, it is the principle of separation of church (or religion) and state. Etymologically, laïcité comes from the Greek λαϊκός (laïkós "of the people", "layman").