AH Challenge: Protestant France, with a twist...

Your challenge is to split France religiously, with the north becoming Protestant whilst the south remains Catholic. The dividing line roughly goes through the middle of OTL France, so from Geneva to Bordeaux. How can this be achieved?

Now to some this is not a challenge. Here is where the challenge enters. The Kingdom of France must remain as a single entity, one nation even with the religious divide.
 
Just to mention something else, France does not have to accept both religions, and the persecution of the other Christian branch is allowed. It does not have to be tolerant of both.
 
France would be the same to Germany. Maybe the Occitan language in the Catholic France would flourish than in OTL and maybe Occitan would become a language of the French Catholics while the Parisian French would be the language of the French Protestants. In terms of standard of living, I will presume that the standard of living in Protestant France would be much better than in Catholic France.
 
In terms of standard of living, I will presume that the standard of living in Protestant France would be much better than in Catholic France.
Uh... why?


and isn't this challenge pretty much a reversal of 16th-century French religious lines? Perhaps something involving the Dutch and the Spanish might do the job...
 
Well, much of 18th century France was "crypto-Calvinist", i.e. the Catholic heresy of Jansenism. So for a while French Catholicism was Protestantized to a large degree. So in a way this is pseudo-OTL.

In fact, one could make the argument that English and Irish Catholicism (and by extension American Catholicism) were heavily Jansenistic in theology and aesthetics. So French Jansenism exerted a heavy degree of influence on other nations, even after Jansenism was largely suppressed in France.
 

Hendryk

Banned
In the 16th century, the Protestants were mostly in the south of France, so if you're thinking of a north-south split, it would be the opposite of what you have in mind.

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In the 16th century, the Protestants were mostly in the south of France, so if you're thinking of a north-south split, it would be the opposite of what you have in mind.

Is there any reason why Protestantism was more successful in the south and not so in the north?
 
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