The Dreyfus Affair and the 1905 separation of Church and State

In 1894 Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jewish artillery officer, was convicted of passing secrets to Germany and sent to Devil’s Island. The evidence was flimsy, and when the real traitor, Major Esterhazy, was identified, the army covered it up. On 13 January 1898 the novelist Émile Zola published his open letter “J’accuse…!” accusing the army of a cover-up. France split into Dreyfusards, who defended justice and individual rights, and anti-Dreyfusards, who defended the army, the Church and the nation, often with open antisemitism. Dreyfus was pardoned in 1899 and fully exonerated in 1906.^•

The Affair strengthened the republican left, which blamed the Church for siding with the army. After decades of conflict over schools, the law of 9 December 1905 separated the Churches and the State: it guaranteed freedom of conscience and worship, but ended public funding and recognition of any religion. Church buildings built before 1905 became public property. Catholics bitterly resisted at first; today the law is widely accepted, though what it requires is endlessly debated. Alsace-Moselle, then German, still lives under the older Concordat.^•

Why it matters today