In France, laïcité is the idea of protecting the state and public affairs from religious power. Catholicism and the French state (kingdoms, empires) made France effectively a theocracy where other religions were discriminated against. In 1905, the Church and State were separated. https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1336763005976145920

In France, due to our past the state is very suspicious of religion in general and the concept is laïcité which means strict secularism, removing religion the public square at large, regarded as a highly personal matter (top down, centralized).

In England, the Queen is the chief of the Anglican Church. In the US, they have "In God we trust" and swear oaths on the Bible.
In most Western countries, they have secularism where freedom of religion is protected from the state whilst (down up, decentralized).

For example, in 2004, the French government banned wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public (e.g., government-operated) primary and secondary schools, which is controversial as seen as discrimination against Muslim headscarfs.

That is not to say that there isn't religious discrimination in France but that discrimination is usually a mixture of racism (Arabs, Blacks), xenophobia (Arabs, Africans) and religious discrimination - which has been on the rise since the state of emergency in 2015.

But the fact that France does caricatures of religious figures is not unique is done to all religious figures. This is to the distaste or disgust of many international observers but over here it is considered as part of our culture of hostility towards religious dogma.