Parochial patronage refers to several Catholic and Protestant organizations initially dedicated to the popular education of underprivileged young people. Such institutions appeared in various European countries at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries - in particular, under the name of Orel in the provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – but the term "patronage" remained closely associated with Belgium, and even more so with France, where Catholic patronages were founded in Marseille at the end of the Consulate by Abbé Jean-Joseph Allemand. Abbé Timon-David later took up the idea, and then widely developed within congregations such as the Brothers of the Christian Schools, Jean Bosco's Salesians, Frédéric Ozanam's Brothers of Saint Vincent de Paul and the Dominican Third Order in the early 20th century.

In parallel with social Catholicism, these institutions developed in parishes in France at the end of the 19th century. They led to the creation of a sports federation in 1898, a few years after Belgium. In 1903, this federation became the French Federation of Gymnastics and Sports Patronages and, in 1968, the French Federation of Sport and Culture. In 1905, with the law on the separation between Church and State, the patronages adopted the status of associations under the law of 1901. Between the two world wars and after 1945, the number of patronages grew rapidly. Since 1965, however, the pastoral decisions of the Church of France have forced them to secularize, and today's patronages are more often than not simply secular sports and cultural associations, most of which remain attached to their original references.

In France, patronages were founded at the beginning of the 19th century in Marseille by Father Jean-Joseph Allemand, who defined them as "places where people play and pray". By creating a space for physical activities as a complement to study circles, they appeared both within the charitable institutions with a social vocation of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul - in Paris in 1835, Rennes in 1840 with the Cadets of Brittany - and within those of teaching orders aimed at the elite, such as the Institute of Sorèze with Father Henri Lacordaire. Traditional running, stilt-walking, and ball games made up the bulk of these activities at first, but with Timon David, gymnastics, developed under the Restoration by Colonel Don Francisco Amoros, took pride of place. This trend was reinforced by the Brothers of the Christian Schools, who included it in their school activities.

This practice remained mainly intramural, and the local patronages of the various religious orders generally avoided meeting and clashing. It wasn't until 1855 that a joint magazine was published, while in Paris an association of young workers was founded by Maurice Maignen. In August 1858, some of the directors of these organizations met at a congress in Angers, where they founded the Union of Catholic Workers of France. In 1865, Maignen's association became the Cercle of the Young Workers, and on the eve of the 1870 war, the Society of Catholic Worker Circles was created. The motto of the International Olympic Committee (IOC): Citius, Altius, Fortius, first uttered on March 7, 1891, was borrowed from one of these institutions, the Albert-le-Grand school in Arcueil, run by Father Henri Didon, a member of the first board of directors of the Union of French Athletic Sports Societies (USFSA).

In 1871, after the defeat of 1870, Count Albert de Mun created the Circles of Catholic Workers. Dr. Paul Michaux, founder of Gymnastics and Sports Federation of French patronages FGSPF, admitted to having participated or collaborated in twenty-five gymnastic, sporting, and military festivals between 1872 and 1897, long before the creation of his federation. It was only after the elections of 1877 and 1879 and the arrival of the Republicans in power that the parish patronages took off, supported by the high clergy and placed under the authority of a vicar-director. Between 1900 and 1960, practically all parishes (except small rural ones) had a "patros" with a sports section, an essential complement to catechism classes. The patronships of the nineteenth century, mainly for apprentices and young workers, then opened up to children of all ages.

In 1888, a commission for patronages and youth works in France was created at the headquarters of the Catholic Institute of Paris (ICP). Three years later, on January 1, 1891, this commission published its bulletin Le Patronage. In addition to the charity conferences and study circles that promoted social Catholicism, physical activities took on such importance that they became a major driving force, both through their civic and school organizations, in the growth of gymnastics and the birth of sport in France.

Before 1914, the three main French federations were the FGSPF, the Union of Gymnastics Societies of France (USGF), and the USFSA After 1918, the latter disappeared in favor of specialized federations - French Soccer Federation (FFF), French Athletics Federation (FFA), French Rugby Federation(FFR), then French Basketball Federation(FFBB), French Volleyball Federation (FFVB) - but the other two remained. The anti-clericalism of the Third Republic, especially that of the USGF, led the Episcopate in 1898 to encourage the reunification of its gymnastic sections within a specific organization. These patronages were not limited to metropolitan France; they also developed in the French colonial empire and particularly in Algeria, on the initiative of Mgr Lavigerie.

Two years after the renewal of the Olympic Games, which emphasized the importance of sport, the Union of Gymnastics and Military Instruction Societies of Patronages and Youth Works of France (USGIMPOJF) was created in 1898, in a generally tense context between lay people and Catholics, the same year as the revision of the Dreyfus trial. In 1901, the organization became the Catholic Gymnastics Societies Federation (FSCG) before becoming the FGSPF in 1903. Paul Michaux, born in Lorraine but adopted in Paris, was not the only one to take up the cause: At the end of 1902, the organization named the Elsaessicher Turnerbund (ETB) which then took the name - Avant-garde du Rhin (AGR) - finally received the recognition from the German authorities that it had been seeking for several years, and the Lyon region, with some thirty patronages at the turn of the century, declared its own Federation of Catholic Gymnastics Societies of the Rhône and South-East at the beginning of 1903, which joined the FGSPF in 1908.