There's a push for New Zealand to show support for France in the wake of the terror attacks, by scrapping our own blasphemy law.

It bans people insulting or showing contempt for a religion, but has never been successfully used for a prosecution.

Humanist Society president Mark Honeychurch says having it on the books makes it difficult to negotiate with countries which do enforce blasphemy laws, and looks bad when most developed countries have scrapped the idea.

"Certainly countries such as the UK no longer have blasphemy laws. They have done in the past but have repealed them because they realised that they're no longer useful or make sense."