Republican or Catholic Civilisation in French Algeria The Debate on the Application of the Law on the Separation of Church and State in Colonial Algeria, 1890-1914

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Republican or Catholic Civilisation in

French Algeria

The Debate on the Application of the Law

on the Separation of Church and State in

Colonial Algeria, 1890-1914

Master Thesis 06/07/2020

Alexander Raboisson / s1784919

Supervisor: Dr. Eric Storm

Second Reader: Dr. Nadia Bouras

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Photo taken in the year 1900 of a statue of le Cardinal Lavigerie in the city of Biskra in North-Eastern Algeria, erected in his honour shortly after his death in 1898. Lavigerie was the Archbishop of Alger from the year 1867-1892 and founded the “Société Missionaire d’Afrique”.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to express my thanks to everyone that has supported me through the process of writing this thesis. I would like to specifically express my thanks to Dr Eric Storm, my supervisor, who guided me in writing this thesis and provided me with insights. I also want to thank my mother who took her time to read and comment on this paper and who unconditionally supported me throughout this process.

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Abstract

This thesis explores the debate around the application of the law on the separation of Church and State of 1905 from France in Colonial Algeria from 1890 to 1914. The unique status of Algeria made it so that it was legally part of France, the three départements of Oran, Alger and Constantine were all counted as French départements. Thus it seemed logical that law would be applied in Algeria as there would be no exceptions to any French territory at the time from the law. The application of the law in Algeria nevertheless sparked controversy as the context in which the law would operate was not the same as in France. The presence of an indigenous Muslim population and the dependency of the local Catholic Church on state subsidies raised concerns whether applying the law in Algeria was wise. The French administration in Algeria had also created a special form of hierarchised and centralised Islam with which the laic state could interact with and control. This was achieved through the control of the medersas, by censoring what was taught in these and the fatwas issued by the ulamas, and the recruitment of imams, ulamas and muftis which were proven to be apolitical and loyal to the French state. The Catholic Church in Algeria also served as an assimilative institution as many non-French European immigrants, from Catholic Countries such as Italy, Spain, Malta and Poland, came to Algeria. The application of the law in Algeria would on paper force the French authorities to give up the control they exerted over the unique form of Islam they had created in Algeria, but also give up the unofficial partnership with the Algerian Church with whom the colonial administration cooperated. The debate that originated in France and opposed Catholics and republicans made its way to Algeria and opposed these two ideological camps. What this thesis attempts to do through the analysis of newspaper articles, is to understand what the public opinion on this issue was in Algeria, to bring a nuanced perspective on the debate by highlighting differences within these two ideological camps, and differently from the scholarly literature adopt an approach not based on institutional archives.

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Introduction

“The republican party has shown that France cannot just be a free country; that it must also be a great country exercising all the influence it has on the destiny of Europe, that it must spread this influence in the world, and carry everywhere it can its language, its customs, its flags, its arms, its genius.” - Jules Ferry 1883

In 1905, France enacted the law on the separation of Church and State, formally dissociating the political from the religious. It was a consequence of decades of laicising initiatives in French society, that had started with education, made its way to the religious congregations and finally had separated the Catholic Church from the French state. France had long been referred to as the eldest daughter of the Church after King Clovis I was baptised in 496. For many Frenchmen to then step away from that role and renounce its state religion was shocking and innovative at the time. The republican government led by Maurice Rouvier of the Third Republic had made this law their crown jewel and it embodied the anti-clerical spirit of late nineteenth century France. Although the government managed to enact this law and lead the French laicisation process, the political atmosphere at the time was extremely tense. Political factions formed and different ideological currents started to manifest themselves, some inspired by the Marxist writings of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx and others embracing the values of the Republic. Opposed to them were those who hailed from the ideas of the ancien regime and stood up for God, country and king. The laicisation process in France was thus not unanimously supported, but in fact resisted by those who longed for the ancien regime, those who adhered to the teachings of the Church and some moderate republicans. Two visions of what the country should represent faced each other in France and its overseas territories, would France be a secular, modern and scientifically governed nation or would France reclaim its Catholic heritage and spread its religion across the world.

An incident with a colonial administrator in Madagascar, in 1899, who was having an altercation with the local French missionary exemplifies this opposition. The colonial administrator had received telegraph poles that he planned to set up to improve communication with the outside world, but the missionary had taken those poles to build a new church for the indigenous population. For the colonial administrator this was blasphemous as the “symbols of technology and progress were used to build a temple of superstition and clericalism”.1_{Yet this}

1_{Daughton J.P, An Empire Divided: Religion, Republicanism and the making of French Colonialism, 1880 -1914, New York, Owford}

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is how these two visions differed, the republicans wanted to civilise the indigenous population with technology and scientific progress while the Catholics wanted to civilise them by converting one soul at a time.2 An animosity that found its origins earlier in the nineteenth century, and can be understood as a French Kulturkampf, between, on the one hand, a Catholic France and, on the other, a secular and republican France.3 These two visions of how to conduct the civilising mission was embroiled in the metropolitan debate on the application of the law on the separation of Church and State.

This thesis aims to explore these opposing views of the French civilising mission in Algeria, specifically how the application of the law on the separation of Church and State was received in the North African territory. France wanted to impose its laicisation process in the colonies, affecting the different religious communities in Algeria: the Jews, Protestants, Catholics and Muslims. French presence in Algeria was justified in the eyes of those who believed France had a duty to civilise the indigenous population such as the Berbers, but more specifically the Arabs. The Arabs were deemed a lesser race to the Berbers, as colonial anthropologists and doctors had constructed an image of the Arab as more prone to violence, theft and subterfuge.4 The Berbers on the other hand, as purported by anthropologists such as Emile-Louis Bertherand, were a fairer race and descended from the Gauls in France.5 Which also meant they were less Islamic than their Arab counterparts, as they had been less influenced by that faith.6 Representative for this belief was Eugéne Bodichon, a doctor in colonial Algeria during the period between 1860s and 1880s, who believed that for security reasons, the Arab race would have to be eradicated or would have to change its character completely, to conform with French ideas of civilisation.7 The implementation of the law in Algeria would be a step in that direction.

The laicisation process was driven during the Third Republic by the radical and republican left and this process would also find its way to Algeria. The North African territory

2_Ibid 3_{Ibid, p 8}

4_{Lorcin, Patricia M. E. "Imperialism, Colonial Identity, and Race in Algeria, 1830-1870: The Role of the French Medical Corps." Isis 90, no.}

4 (1999): p 662-663

Kloos David, ‘A Crazy State. Violence, Psychiatry, and Colonialism in Aceh, Indonesia, ca. 1910–1942’, Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia 170 (2014), p32

5_{Meynier, Pierrette, and Meynier, Gilbert. "L'immigration Algérienne En France : Histoire Et Actualité." Confluences Méditerranée 77, no.}

2 (2011): p222

6_{Lorcin, Patricia M. E. "Imperialism, Colonial Identity, and Race in Algeria, 1830-1870: The Role of the French Medical Corps." Isis 90, no.}

4 (1999): p 679

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was legally part of France, its northern part, the most populous and urbanised one, was divided into three “départements”, Constantine, Oran and Alger. This is why it would be logical for the law of 1905 on the separation of Church and State to also be applied there, a decision that would raise a lot of concerns within the Catholic community in Algeria. The Church played an important and active role in civil society as an official partner of the state. While the Catholics in the three Algerian départements did not number as many as the Muslims, around 600 000 Catholics opposed to around 4 500 000 Muslims resided in the territory,8_{the proximity of the}

Church to the state and the army made it a crucial actor in colonial Algeria,9_{as it gave the}

colonial mission legitimacy. The civilising mission, in the eyes of the Church, had to be based on Christian values if it was to be successful.10_{However, the Church did not seek to convert}

the indigenous population, as this was deemed too difficult,11 the Church served as a colonial and apolitical church, but not a missionary one.12 It was a spiritual guide to the colonial French, excluding the secular republicans, just as it had been in the metropole. The Muslims already had their spiritual needs covered by their own faith, as they already had their marabouts, imams and religious brotherhood as spiritual vectors.

In this context, the application of the 1905 law in Algeria raised a lot of controversy as some, specifically Catholics, wanted the territory to remain exempt from it. Arguments from both sides were raised, those in favour of the application of the law in Algeria and those who were against it, and these two camps, and their arguments, is something that this paper will explore. The question of the implications for the Muslim community was also raised, as economic and security concerns weighed heavily in the debate. Another issue was whether a separation of the civil and the religious was possible in an Islamic society, something that most Frenchmen at the time did not deem plausible.

The topic of this thesis will be the French laicisation process that was brought to Algeria and the application of the law on the separation of Church and State, in Algeria. The paper aims to explore what the settlers, made up of republicans and Catholics, thought of the laicisation process as a whole, and the application of it, as well as the specific law in Algeria. To further the understanding of the debate, the paper will explore what the repercussions of the laicisation

8_{Pinon, Rene. “La séparation des église et l’état en Algérie”, Revue Des Deux Mondes : Recueil De La Politique, De L'administration Et}

Des Moeurs. Gallica, November 1, 1907. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k431815h?rk=42918;4 , p 885

9_{Oissila Saaïdia, and Henry Laurens. Algérie Coloniale: Musulmans et Chrétiens: Le contrôle de l’État, 1830-1914. Paris: CNRS éditions,}

2015, p 129

10_{Ibid, p 270} 11_{Ibid, p 186} 12_{Ibid, p 123}

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process and the application of the law in Algeria were on the Catholic and Muslim community. The special mandate of France in Algeria raised different concerns when it came to application of the law than it did in the metropole. The research question is: To what extent did the debate in Algeria on the application of the law on the separation of Church and State in the North-African territory reflect the debate in metropolitan France from 1890 to 1914? The arguments presented from the local Catholic and republican newspapers on the application of the law in Algeria will demonstrate that the fault lines present in the metropole also existed in Algeria. The colonial endeavours in Algeria brought with them the ideological backpacks and political divisions of the metropole. In addition, the local context nuanced these already existing fault lines in Algeria, because the implications in the Algerian context were not the same as in France, due to, for example, the existence of the indigenous population, and the two ideological blocks, especially on the republican side, were less homogeneous and differed in their opinions on the application of the law in Algeria.

To answer this question, this thesis will explore the debate in the local Algerian newspapers on the application of the law, and the larger laicisation process it was part of, that started prior to 1905, from the beginning of 1890 to the start of World War I in 1914. This implies that the paper will be looking at both sides of the debate, that is, those in favour of the application of the law and those against. Those on either side of the debate represented two visions of metropolitan France and by extension two visions of France’s role as a colonising nation. By looking at newspaper articles the thesis will be able to provide an understanding of what public opinion was at the time on the debate on the application of the law on the separation of Church and State in Algeria. Due to the specific context in which the law would operate in Algeria, understanding what the local public opinion was, will help illuminate differences in the debate between the metropole and its colony.

A. Literature Review :

Scholars who have done research on the application of the 1905 law in Algeria agree on what occurred in Algeria and what contemporary ideological movements, active in the debate on the application of the law, argued. While it was important that the law and its effects were extended to the Algerian territory, the full extent of the law was not applied, as for example the governor-general of Algeria was reserved the right to grant indemnities, for a period of ten years, to any

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religious minister of his choosing. 13 The special mandate of the colonial mission in Algeria made it so that, for security and pragmatic reasons, the religious influence remained more extensive in Algeria than it did in France, for example the Catholic Church in Algeria helped assimilate other Catholic non-French European communities, such as Italians and Spaniards, into Algerian colonial society.14 Algeria was legally considered to be part of metropolitan France, but the setting in which the authorities interacted with the indigenous population and the colonisation of the land by the settlers show its colonial character. Raberh Achi, a French-Algerian scholar, who has published numerous articles on the relation between Islam, the French Empire and laicity, identified that two opposing republican discourses existed; one was arguing in favour of the need to export the law to keep ideological integrity, and the other to be pragmatic about it and, to keep better control of the religious denominations in Algeria.15 Republican discourses on the civilising mission did not only oppose each other, but were also opposed to the Catholic vision of the civilising mission.

This thesis will however base the analysis on newspapers articles. In contrast to the authors in this section, this paper aims to approach the debate from a perspective of public opinions in the settler’s press. Their focus is also chronologically spread out, with reviewed sources ranging from 1880 to the 1950s, whereas this paper will concentrate on the period between 1890 and 1914. The information used by the scholars in this section are mostly composed of institutional primary sources. Such as the authors of these different books and articles use sources from national, missionary, governmental and religious archives. They draw on the larger political trends at the time and apply more of a macro perspective on the debate, without really elaborating on the ideals and opinions held by individuals in the colony. This section will be organised similarly to the analysis, with arguments classified by overarching thematic similarities but are then written out chronologically.

a. Republican Civilising Mission

In the book A Mission to Civilize. The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa

(1895-1930), published in 1997, by Alice L. Conklin, she explains how the proponents of the

civilising mission believed that colonialism would be a powerful additive to the republican

13_{Portier, P. (2016). L'État et les religions en France: Une sociologie historique de la laïcité. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes., p}

159

2015

15_Achi_{, Raberh. “Laïcité d’empire. Les débats sur l’application du régime de séparation à l’islam impérial”, Patrick Weil éd., Politiques de la} laïcité au XXe_{siècle. Presses Universitaires de France, (2007) p 238}

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struggle.16 If the implementation of republican policies in the colony proved to be successful then the self-proclaimed universality of republican ideology would be legitimised. The republican civilising mission would then be a success, a mission that would be characterised by scientific and technological advancements. Developing infrastructure, such as building roads, train tracks or setting up telegraph poles would be the way in which republican France liberated the indigenous population from their savage condition.17 Her focus remains institutional and is inspired from the writings of government officials and colonial administrators found in the national archives of France and Senegal, which contain the archives of the now defunct French West-African Government. France kept its universalizing and egalitarian principles during the colonisation of West Africa until World War I, when colonial policy took a conservative turn and started supporting the pre-colonial aristocracy in the colonies.18

Raberh Achi in several of his works focused on Algeria, spanning from 2004 to 2014, makes reference to Alice L. Conklin, and alludes to the universal and egalitarian aspirations of the Third Republic, and that the law on the separation of Church and State would be part of these ambitions.19 The implementation of the law would serve as a way to level the ground for all religious communities in Algeria. The successful implementation of the law in Algeria would be a triumph for the republican civilising mission. The sources cited in the articles by Raberh Achi are mostly coming from the archives of the Ministry of Interior, from the now defunct general colonial government of Algeria or from the archives of the now defunct Ministry of the Colonies. Similarly to Conklin, his sources draw from politicians and dignitaries in the colony but also in the metropole. Raberh Achi echoes the point made by Alice Conklin, that the colonial mission would be a powerful additive to the republican struggle.20 He emphasises this republican belief by stating that one of the conceivers of the law, the moderate socialist politician Artistide Briand, believed that not applying the law, which had such a symbolic reach, in the colonies would be a betrayal of what the Third Republic stood for.21

16_{Conklin A. (1997), A Mission to Civilize. The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa (1895-1930), Stanford University}

Press, Stanford, p 94

17_{Ibid, p 53} 18_{Ibid, p 249}

19_{Achi Raberh. “La séparation des Eglises et de l'Etat à l'épreuve de la situation coloniale. Les usages de la dérogation dans l'administration}

du culte musulman en Algérie (1905-1959)”. In: Politix, vol. 17, n°66, (2004), p 82

20_{Achi, Raberh. “Les apories d'une projection républicaine en situation coloniale : la dépolitisation de la séparation du culte musulman et de}

l'État en Algérie”, Pierre-Jean Luizard éd., Le choc colonial et l'islam. La Découverte, (2006), p 237

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Anna Bozzo, in her contribution to an edited volume by Pierre Jean-Luizard on Islam and citizenship in Algeria during the Third Republic, published in 2006 as Le choc colonial et

l'islam, in which Raberh Achi has also written a chapter, extensively draws from the Archives

Nationales d’Outre Mer, in which she has chosen to use the old ministerial and prefectural archives from Algeria. She discusses how the republican policies were applied and surveyed in Algeria to determine the success of the republican civilising mission, 22 and that Islam posed a major impediment in the eyes of the French authorities to the assimilation and naturalisation of the indigenous population to French society.

In An Empire Divided: Religion, Republicanism and the making of French Colonialism,

1880-1914, published in 2006 J.P. Daughton argues that the civilising mission would be the

embodiment of the spirit of the French Revolution and the secular and rational ideals of the Enlightenment.23 Just as previous authors have stated, this is the civilising mission as understood by the republicans. However, Daughton makes an important point that Conklin in her book only brushes over, the fact that the Church and Catholic ideals played an almost as important role in the civilising mission, that there was not one view of the civilising mission, but rather two, divided along political lines and can be summarised as the republican vs. the Catholic civilising mission.24 Daughton makes reference to the work of Conklin, as she states that France’s main goal was the spread of republican ideals and technology that was an inseparable part of colonialism and would put the uncivilized regions of the world on the road to progress.25 Daughton agrees, but furthers the argumentation by showing the almost equal influence that the Catholic Church and its civilising mission had in the colonies through missionary work, in Sub Saharan Africa and Madagascar. He points out that the influence the Church and in Algeria was different, as it was not a missionary one but there to help organise civil society, just as it did in France.26_{He states that the Church did not try and convert Muslims}

in Algeria as they deemed them to be spiritually intractable.27_{His focus is then primordially}

based on the ideologies of the time, republican and Catholic, and he uses institutional sources, such as letters between politicians or decrees issued by colonial administrators found in national

22_{Bozzo, Anna. “Islam et citoyenneté en Algérie sous la IIIe République : logiques d'émancipation et contradictions coloniales (l'exemple}

des lois de 1901 et 1905)”, Pierre-Jean Luizard éd., Le choc colonial et l'islam. Paris, La Découverte, 2006, p 197

23_{Daughton J.P, An Empire Divided: Religion, Republicanism and the making of French Colonialism, 1880-1914, New York, Owford}

University press (2006) p 5

24_{Ibid, p 21} 25_{Ibid, p 30} 26_{Ibid, p 22} 27_Ibid

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and missionary archives in France and its ex-colonies for support. Conklin does reference ideology and its role in the colonies but she maintains a wider perspective with in turn an added institutional and economic scope.

Raberh Achi, in an article on the applciation of the law in Algeria from 2007, reiterates that the law was developed in the metropole and debated domestically but soon enough the colonies became another battleground on which republican ideals were fought, that the application of the law became one of the many registers of the civilising mission.28_By

endorsing the application of the law in Algeria, according to him the colonial project adhered to the universalist ideals of the Third Republic.29_{Daughton, interposes that the Catholic}

influence played an essential role in the colonies and thus the battle for republican ideals in the colonies was fought along the same lines as it was in the metropole.30 Oissila Saïda in Algérie

Coloniale: Musulmans et chrétiens: Le contrôle de lÉtat, 1830-1914 from 2015, aligns with

previously mentioned authors by reiterating the position held by the republicans at the time that if the law was not applied in the same measure in Algeria as it was in France, it would shade the universal truths of republican justice and spirit.31

b. Catholic Civilising Mission

As has been alluded to in the previous section, there existed two different understandings of the purpose of the civilizing mission in the colonies. The understanding was divided along the political lines in the metropole between Catholics and republicans, the Catholic civilising mission differed from the republican one in that it, in the majority of colonies, remained focused on the conversion of the indigenous.

However, the Church maintained a different purpose in Algeria. Whereas, in other colonies its role was a missionary one, in Algeria it helped organise the lives of the faithful just like in France. Raberh Achi in his first study published in 2004 on the separation of Church and State in Algeria, argues that many senators in the metropole and some Algerian journalists feared that the application of the law in Algeria would lead to the church losing its French

28_{Achi, Raberh. “Laïcité d’empire. Les débats sur l’application du régime de séparation à l’islam impérial”, Patrick Weil éd., Politiques de la} laïcité au XXe_{siècle. Presses Universitaires de France, (2007), p 238}

29_{Ibid, p 262}

University press (2006), p 263

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essence and be dominated by foreign born priests.32 They believed that these priests would still receive funding from their home country,33 creating a fifth column in the North African territory. Oissila Saaïdia in an article published in 2005 echoes this statement, by explaining how a certain Brager de la Ville Moyan, a Monarchist senator during the Third Republic, believed that the Catholic presence in the colony was the centre of the civilising influence and the hearth of French propaganda in Algeria.34 Oissila Saaïdia in this work primordially uses institutional sources found for example in the archives of the archbishop of Alger.

The author thus argues that, the civilising mission of France was divided, some wanted to keep the Church active in the colonies while the republicans aimed to curb its influence at home and abroad. The Church and the state were almost at war over who would have the most influence in the colonies. Despite these initially strongly opposing camps, Daughton states in his book that over time, towards the beginning of the First World War, the Church accustomed itself to this state-centred approach and adopted a colonial terminology that resembled that of the republicans.35 References to race and culture became part of how the Church interacted with the colonies and the indigenous populations. Faith in Christ was now not the only category separating the French from the uncivilised people. Race, nationality and culture all became part of Church rhetoric. Interestingly, as Daughton suggests, this eventual cooperation between the Church and the state led hardliners, such as the freemasons to lose faith in the colonial ventures, as they became less ideologically driven.36 Daugthon suggests in his book that the conversion of indigenous people to Catholicism would be a way for them to assimilate to French society.37 This was something the freemasons strongly disliked as they wanted French society to distance itself from religion. In the end, this assimilation was not successful as the cultural differences became prevalent.38_{So, the colonial missions became pragmatic,}39_{the Church and the state}

ended up cooperating in the colonies in contrast to their opposition in the metropole. Thus, as

32_{Achi Raberh. “La séparation des Eglises et de l'Etat à l'épreuve de la situation coloniale. Les usages de la dérogation dans l'administration}

du culte musulman en Algérie (1905-1959)”. In: Politix, vol. 17, n°66, (2004). p 85

33_Ibid

34_{Saaïdia, Oissila. "L'anticléricalisme article d'exportation? Le Cas De L'Algérie Avant La Première Guerre Mondiale." Vingtième Siècle.} Revue D'histoire, no. 87 (2005): p 108

University press (2006), p 228

36_{Ibid, 264} 37_{Ibid, p 93} 38_Ibid 39_{Ibid, p 261}

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Daughton seems to say, the Church did eventually embrace its secondary role in the colonial enterprise.

In contrast to Conklin, Daughton adds nuance to the argument that the civilising mission was primordially a republican venture. This is something that we can also see in the book by Oissila Saaïdia in which the crux of her argumentation revolves around the opposition between Catholics and republicans in Algeria. Her argumentation is based on a wider array of sources than other authors, as she also makes use of newspaper articles for her data, and most of it is used as a factual basis. In comparison to her use of governmental sources, stemming from the archives of the Parisian Freemason lodge, Archbishop of Alger and the now defunct French Algerian départements, her use of newspaper articles remains minimal. Nevertheless, she illustrates that the Catholic civilising mission, opposed to the republican perception of it, had a long reach in the colonies and Algeria itself. Those who valued the Catholic heritage of France wanted to keep the Catholic Church active in the colonies, because they believed the civilising mission could not be conceivable without Catholic participation.40 She emphasises that many dignitaries, settlers and politicians, at home and abroad, confounded religious influence with French influence in Algeria, and that without a religious presence, the civilising mission could not be continued. It was feared that without the Catholic Church taking an active role in colonial society it would come to hurt the colonial mandate of the state in Algeria.41 The Church needed to be an official colonial partner.42 But another reason given by Oissila Saaida and other scholars, such as Raberh Achi, was as important. Saaida in her aforementioned book highlights the assimilative role played by the Catholic Church, the non-French Europeans would be inculcated with French language and culture through the Church.43 Since the sizeable Spaniard, Italians and Maltese communities, foreigners made up 37,6% of the European population in Algeria in 1901, were in majority Catholics, the Church played an important role in their assimilation to French colonial society. Daughton argues that for the Church at the time the conversion of indigenous people was a way to assimilate them, although in Algeria it proved unsuccessful. Saaïdia, however, points out that the assimilation efforts were more successful with the non-French Europeans in Algeria, where there was a much smaller cultural and religious gap to bridge. Daughton and Saaïdia converge in their argumentations and

2015, p 171

41_{Ibid, p 280} 42_{Ibid, p 306} 43_{Ibid, p 290}

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observations on the Church and its role in Algeria and the colonies. Daughton suggests that the Church eventually accepted its secondary role in the colonies and Saaïdia acknowledges this in her conclusion, where she highlights that the State and the Church in the colonies kept cordial relations and still cooperated for the better interest of the colony.44

c. The Colonial State, the Civilising Mission and its relation to

Islam

The republican civilising mission, as has been discussed, aimed to impose its ways on the indigenous population. In Algeria, the colonial authorities recognised Islam as the greatest threat to their rule. The authorities believed that if contestation was to come from anywhere it would find its origins in Islam. Islam would therefore have to be pacified and changed in a way that the authorities could interact with it and control it. Islam had been seen as problematic for years prior to the implementation of the law, for example one of those issues was that it posed a health risk to its believers. Doctor Jules Brault, in an article from the “Annales d’hygiéne publique et de médécine légale” published in 1903, made a case for himself to prove that Islam did not serve the interest of a better hygiene but that on the contrary it hurt hygienic practices.45

The reasons that he alluded to were for example the custom of circumcising young boys. Certain pathologies were also attributed to the “Muslim ethnicity”, with syphilis being widespread amongst their population and being labelled as an ethnic degeneracy.46

Islam was negatively seen, especially in Algeria and this fed into the debate on how Islam would interact with a secular state. In the book edited by John Ruedy, “Islamism and

Secularism in North Africa” published in 1996, several authors discuss the interactions that

Islam had with secularism in the Maghreb. The third chapter written by Chater Khalifa explains what mechanism the French authorities used to control the religious word. By targeting the medersas, the educational institutions, religious or secular, of the Islamic World, the state could marginalise the common and traditional “ulama”, the interpreters and scholars of religious knowledge in Islam, who were usually educated in the medersas, effectively withdrawing them from the decision-making centres.47 The ulamas of the traditional schools were forced to resign,

44_{Ibid, p 333}

45_{Leonard, J. "Médecine Et Colonisation En Algérie Au XIXe Siècle." Annales De Bretagne Et Des Pays De L'Ouest 84, no. 3 (1977): p 484} 46_{Ibid, p 486}

47_{Chater, Khalifa “A Rereading of Islamic Texts in the Maghrib in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: Secular Themes or}

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and “helped the power structure ensure a certain monopoly of fatwas”.48_{The colonial state}

could thus erect a barrier between the religious and the secular, by depoliticising the medersas, with the formation of “legalists (ulamas) in the exclusive service of the state”.49_{The state}

monopolised the religious word, the fatwas, formed in the medersas and shaped them to endorse colonial rule.

For her research Kalifa made use of the fatwas written by ulamas at the time and letters exchanged between religious and state dignitaries, such as the Bey of Tunis, Bey was the regional leader of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa. Islam was indeed seen as the greatest impediment to colonial rule in Algeria by the colonial administration. In Policing Paris: The

Origins of Modern Immigration Control between the Wars published in 2006 Clifford

Rosenberg, he as most other authors makes use of the national and departmental archives in France composed of letters between politicians and dignitaries. In his book, the author describes how the Muslims who wanted to be granted French citizenship had to, as implied by the Crémieux Decree, give up their religion and embrace the French Civil Code.50 By embracing the French Civil Code Muslims had renounce sharia law and implicitly renounce their faith. The fear that the colonial authorities had of Islam led colonial dignitaries, as Raberh Achi argues in an already previously cited work, to depoliticise the religious sphere and bring under control what was being preached in the mosques. The colonial state started to select the religious ministers based on their loyalism, apolitical attitude, and level of influence they had over their coreligionists.51 By depoliticising Islam, the authorities could ensure that the religion would not be used to contest colonial rule. Both Chater Khalifa and Raberh Achi suggest that the ulamas who interpreted the religious word would be chosen based on their apolitical attitude and could then interpret the religious word in a way that satisfied the colonial authorities. The fatwas were apolitical and depoliticised because the ulamas who produced them would also be.

Anna Bozzo states, in her chapter published in 2006 and similarly to what Raberh Achi and Chater Khalia have suggested in their works, that the republican civilising mission would take place through the education of the indigenous population, the medersas would become a tool of the state, as the authorities could control and censor the religious word, and form the

48_Ibid 49_Ibid

50_{Rosenberg, Clifford D. Policing Paris: The Origins of Modern Immigration Control between the Wars. 2006, p 120}

51_Achi_{, Raberh. “Les apories d'une projection républicaine en situation coloniale : la dépolitisation de la séparation du culte musulman et de}

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imams and ulamas in the image of the Republic.52 The republican imams could then educate the believers in the ways of the Republic and unite all people in the colony under the communion of shared ideas and sentiments.53 The colonial authorities, as suggested by the authors, wanted to shape the indigenous people to become French subjects, and lead the indigenous people away from their religion. A point presented by both Anna Bozzo and Raberh Achi is that the control the colonial state could exert over Islam in Algeria, was due to its monopoly of the habous, the rent drawn from a good or property linked to a religious activity that would satisfy the needs of the Muslim community, which were used to fund religious practices.54_{The state monopolised Islam’s funding. This practice ought to have ceased with the}

application of the law of 1905, but did not. The control of the habous was a way to monitor the Islamic faith, and a result of republican civilising policies in Algeria. To monitor religion was a core tenet of the republican ideology. After World War I the monopoly held by the state on the habous led it to become a source of contestation.55 As Muslims demanded autonomy from the state and anti-colonial sentiment grew, the separation of church and state became a source of contestation by the indigenous people against the colonial regime,56 a point also brought up by Raberh Achi in his chapter of the same volume. The indigenous people were faced with a reality in which the separation of Church and State was made but the state de facto retained control of the religious word, through the habous.

Raberh Achi in his article from 2009, on the creation of a state controlled Islam in Algeria, explains how the French banned Muslims from going on pilgrimage to Mecca, the official reason being poor sanitary conditions in the city and the colonial authorities did not want them to bring back any diseases.57_{In reality, according to Raberh Achi, it seems that the}

reasoning was ideological because the colonial state did not want the indigenous population to

52_{Bozzo, Anna. “ Islam et citoyenneté en Algérie sous la IIIe République : logiques d'émancipation et contradictions coloniales (l'exemple}

53_{Ibid, p 211}

54_{Raberh Achi “Conquête des âmes et consolidation de l’ordre colonial. La fabrique d’un “islam algérien”” Borne, Dominique, and Falaize}

Benoît. Religions Et Colonisation, XVIe-XXe siècle: Afrique, Amérique, Asie, Océanie. Paris: Les Éditions de l’Atelier /Éditions Ouvrières, 2009, p 144

Achi, Raberh. “Les apories d'une projection républicaine en situation coloniale : la dépolitisation de la séparation du culte musulman et de l'État en Algérie”, Pierre-Jean Luizard éd., Le choc colonial et l'islam. La Découverte, (2006), p 244

56_{Ibid, p 204}

57_{Raberh Achi, “Conquête des âmes et consolidation de l’ordre colonial. La fabrique d’un “islam algérien”” Borne, Dominique, and Falaize}

Benoît. Religions Et Colonisation, XVIe-XXe siècle: Afrique, Amérique, Asie, Océanie. Paris: Les Éditions de lAtelier /Éditions Ouvrières, (2009): p 148

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receive any external influence. The believers would, according to the Admiral Gueydon in 1871, the first governor of Algeria under the Third Republic, “come back more fanatical and less inclined to submit themselves to our domination”.58_{For the colonial authorities the creation}

of a French Islam in Algeria meant that it had to be free from external influences. Nahas Mohamed Mahieddine, in his article from 2012, on the influence of Mustafa Kemal Ataürk on the Algerian National Movement, pointed out that the French disliked the influence that the Ottomans had over the Algerians and the administration believed that the indigenous people trusted the Sublime Porte and venerated the sultan.59

Raberh Achi in an article from 2014 synthesising his previous works, explains that a key reason as to why many in the colony, even republicans who approached this issue pragmatically rather than ideologically, were reluctant for the law of the separation between the Church and state to be applied in Algeria was that the control over the mosques and medersas would disappear. Algerian Islam would then be subjected to external influence and thoughts that diverged from the line of the colonial state. The colonial authorities wanted to keep the mosques within the French administration, as it was at risk of losing key intermediaries with the indigenous population population.60 Islam in the eyes of the French colonial authorities did not discern between the sacred and the profane, politics and religion could not be separated. The interpretation by the French authorities of al-islâm dîn wa dawla, “Islam is religion and State or politics”, translated into a belief that Muslims solely accept theocracy.61_{In the words}

of Rene Pinon, “Il ne se contente pas de mettre de la religion dans sa vie, il met sa vie dans la religion”.62_{The French strategy would therefore be to try to retain control of the religious to}

ensure political subservience by the Muslims. Oissila Saaïdia in an article from 2016, using the same archival sources as her book from 2015, summarises the intentions the colonial authorities had of creating a national Islam. She refers to it as France trying to create a gallican Islam, organised similarly to how the Catholic Church is organised, with a national hierarchy and structure. By doing this the colonial authorities could make the Muslims accept the authority of

58_Ibid

59_{Mahieddine, Nahas Mohamed. "La Pensée Politique De Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Et Le Mouvement National Algérien." Insaniyat , no.}

25-26 (2012): p 123

60_{Achi, Raberh. “L'Algérie coloniale ou la confrontation inaugurale de la laïcité avec l'islam”, Abderrahmane Bouchène éd., Histoire de}

l'Algérie à la période coloniale. 1830-1962. Paris, La Découverte, 2014, p 206

61_{Oissila Saaïdia “L’invention du culte musulman dans l’Algérie coloniale du}_XIXe_{siècle”, L’Année du Maghreb, 2016, posted 21 June 2016,}

Acessed 20 April 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/anneemaghreb/2689

62_{Pinon, Rene. “La séparation des église et l’état en Algérie”, Revue Des Deux Mondes : Recueil De La Politique, De L'administration Et}

Des Moeurs. Gallica, November 1, 1907. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k431815h?rk=42918;4 , p 877 “He (the Muslim) is not content with putting religion into his life, he puts his life into religion”

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the state and merge its interests with that of the national interest. The colonial state had created, in the words of the author, “de véritables fonctionnaires de Dieu”, the imams and the ulamas formed and picked by the state were now its civil servants.63

The arguments for and against the application of the law in Algeria, held by the settlers and the colonial authorities, were organised along political lines, and different understandings of the civilising mission, which can be framed in a wider debate separating the two visons of Metropolitan France and by extension France’s role as a colonizer. This will comes across in the primary sources, where conflicting views and opinions on how to approach the colony and how to interact with political rivals are expressed by the locals. While some of the authors described in this chapter, such as Oissila Saaïdia, do, to a minor extent, consider the newspapers and grassroots perspectives, they mostly rely on governmental and institutional sources. This paper, however, will focus on what arguments were presented by Catholics and republicans in the local newspapers. The reasoning for this is that, the local perspective, through the newspapers, will help provide an understanding of what the settlers thought the effects of the law would be on colonial society, the Catholic Church, and the indigenous population. The newspapers can provide a clearer image of what public opinion, in Algeria, was on the application of the law. Because the context in which the law would operate in was different than the one in France, understanding what the public opinion was in Algeria will help illuminate the differences between the metropolitan and local debate.

B. Methodology:

The sources used for this thesis will mostly be newspaper articles from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The period, will span from 1890 to the beginning of World War I in 1914. By starting the analysis, fifteen years before the enactment of the law, the thesis will be able to explore the political context of this secularisation process. The analysis will end in 1914, as the unity of the nation is emphasised on all sides of the political spectrum due to the beginning of the war. The analysis will mostly rely on newspaper articles, as that is where the debate on the application of the law in Algeria manifests itself the most. 64 The newspapers that

63_{Oissila Saaïdia}_{, “L’invention du culte musulman dans l’Algérie coloniale du}_XIXe_siècle”,_{L’Année du Maghreb}_{, 2016, posted 21 June}

2016, Acessed 20 April 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/anneemaghreb/2689 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/anneemaghreb.2689 “real civil servants of God”

64_{Oissila Saaïdia, and Henry Laurens. Algérie Coloniale: Musulmans Et chrétiens: Le contrôle De lÉtat, 1830-1914. Paris: CNRS éditions,}

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the paper will be exploring are, La Croix de l’Algérie et de la Tunisie and l’Echo d’Alger, the former of which is a Catholic newspaper and the latter is a left-wing republican publication. La

Croix de l’Algérie et de la Tunisie a Catholic newspaper, founded in 1898, is most likely a

derivative of the metropolitan Catholic newspaper named La Croix, which had several regional publications named after it, such as La Croix de la Charente or even La Croix du Nord. The newspaper had a conservative outlook and was fiercely opposed to laicisation efforts in Algeria. The publications of the newspaper are digitalised and available online, from 1899 to 1909.

L’Echo d’Alger, was founded by an Algerian settler named Etienne Baïlac in 1912, and operated

as a left-wing radical newspaper. The publications of the newspaper are digitalised and available online from 1912 to 1948. The newspaper L’Avenir de l’Est and Le Bel Abbésien are both republican newspaper and are used to fill the gap in articles on the republican side before 1912. L’Avenir de l’Est has publications, during the time period of interest, digitalized and available online from 1901 to 1906. While Le Bel Abbésien has publications, during the time period of interest, digitalized and available online from 1890 to 1894. The newspaper La Paix

Sociale, a newspapers that started publishing in 1910 after that La Croix de l’Algérie et de la Tunisie ceased its activities will help fill the gap on the Catholic side and is available online

from 1910 to 1911.

I want to explore the debate on the laicisation of France prior to the enactment of the law as it is interesting to understand the debate and the arguments that were used in favour or against the application of the law in Algeria. The Catholic newspaper La Croix de l’Algérie et

de la Tunisie was opposed to the application of the law in Algeria, while l’Echo d’Alger a

republican and radical newspaper was in favour of applying the law in the colony.

In the analysis, this paper will be juxtaposing the arguments made on both sides of the debate. Some comparisons will also have to be made when it comes to understanding the differences in reaction between the Catholic and Muslim community towards the law. A shortcoming for the paper is that the opinion of the indigenous population and what the speculated effects of the application would be on Islam will only be represented through the local settler newspapers.

Different concerns were raised about what the effects of this law would be for each community. Because this thesis is mostly exploring newspaper articles, the analysis will largely be qualitative as the thesis is going to decipher the meaning of what is said in the newspaper articles. To do so this thesis will also have to consider the context in which these articles are written.

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To find the articles that are of relevance for the paper the Gallica database, part of the Bibliothéque Nationale de France, was used. Within each newspaper, which have been digitalised, and keywords to seek out the articles that discuss the issue at hand. The keywords used were, “Laïcité, Laïque Musulman, Catholiques, Séparation, Anticléricale and Cléricale” The number of hits per keyword per year differs from newspaper and keyword used, for example the word “musulman” received 28 hits during the year 1908 in the newspaper La Croix

de l’Algérie et de la Tunisie, while the word “anticléricale” gets 4 hits in the year 1912 in l’Echo d’Alger. The articles have then been chosen based on the relevance of their content, opinion

pieces being prioritised as they are the ones with the highest likelihood of providing relevant data, but discussions and news on the topic are also of relevance.

The thesis will start by providing the political context of the time, then describing some of the actors in Algeria and what visions they had for the territory and lastly the idea of republican universalism and how Islam was seen by the colonisers. Thereafter, the thesis will analyse the primary sources and explore through two main axis what is said in the articles, while keeping in mind what the perception of this law was, and the laicisation process it was part of, by those who stood for and against its application in Algeria. The articles on either side will help provide a perspective on what public opinion was on the application of the law in Algeria, and what nuances and differences it has with the metropolitan debate. The first part will elaborate on the republican side of the debate, which entails a discussion of how the republicans aimed to create an ideological and legal unity between the metropole and the colony, and why they believed the law and the laicisation process had to be part of Algerian colonisation to civilise the indigenous people and turn them into Frenchmen. The second part will discuss the Catholic side of the debate, what their ideological convictions were regarding the application of the law in Algeria and what their arguments were for exempting Algeria from this process. This will entail a discussion of how weakening the Church in Algeria could pose a risk, according to the Catholics, for the organization of the colony, and how favouring or alienating the indigenous population through the law would pose great security concerns in the colony. The organisation within the different parts will be thematic and organised around the relevance of each article to the argument. The articles in each argument are organised chronologically so as to follow the development of the debate for each argument.

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Historical Background

A. The Political Context

The implementation of the law on the separation of Church and State in Algeria was the result of a long process of secularisation that had started in the metropole during the French Revolution. But it was during the Third Republic that this process started yielding concrete results. First, the Ferry laws which made primary education in schools obligatory, laic and free had been passed in 1881; they aimed to conform citizens at an early age to the values held by the Republic.65 By targeting education, the Third Republic could gain momentum and support in their project to change French society. In 1901 the Law on Congregations was passed, which obliged religious congregations on French soil to register with the state, so that they could continue their religious services freely or risk having to cease their activities.66 So, the law on the separation of Church and State, was the product of a culmination of the laicisation process. It was first proposed under the Rouvier Government of 1887, and the report on the enactment of such a law and its effects was started in 1903 and submitted by Artistdie Briand, a republican and socialist politician ,and future president of the council of ministers of France, in 1905.67 He was the prime mover in the implementation of this law in France which effectively codified la Laïcité in France. La Laïcité was, at the time, seen as the official separation of Church and State, the confinement of religion to the private sphere and the neutrality of the state towards all religious congregations. Artistide Briand then became responsible for convincing the traditional and conservative Catholics in France that the law would not be an infringement solely on the Church.68_{France and the Vatican had cut diplomatic ties in 1904 so the tensions}

between the French state and the Church was at an all-time high. After 48 sessions in the chamber on the contents of the law, it was passed in the parliament on the third of July 1905, with 341 votes in favour of the application of the law and 221 votes against, 69 under the government ruled by the Bloc des Gauche, a parliamentary group constituted of republicans

65_{Harrigan, Patrick. "Church, State, and Education in France from the Falloux to the Ferry Laws: A Reassessment." Canadian Journal of} History/Annales Canadiennes D'histoire 36, no. 1 (2001): p 76

67_{Bellon, Christophe. Aristide Briand, rapporteur de la loi de 1905 et dernier ministre des cultes In : De Georges Clemenceau à Jacques} Chirac : l'état et la pratique de la Loi de Séparation [en ligne]. Villeneuve d'Ascq : Publications de l’Institut de recherches historiques du

Septentrion, 2008 (généré le 21 juin 2020). Disponible sur Internet : http://books.openedition.org/irhis/381. ISBN : 9782905637819

68_Ibid 69_Ibid

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and radicals, and governed by Maurice Rouvier in his second stint as President of the Council. Six months later, the sixth of December 1905, the law was due for a vote in the senate, where it passed with no amendments, with 181 votes in favour and 102 votes against.70 The law was promulgated the ninth of December 1905 and would come into effect in 1906.It protected freedom of conscience and the free exercise of worship, but also stated the Republic did not recognise, subsidise or pay the salaries of any religious officials. This meant that from the first of January 1906 all budget expenses of the state, départements and municipalities relating to “l’exercice des cultes” would be cut.71_{The Third Article elaborates on the most controversial}

aspect of the law at the time, which also posed major concerns in Algeria at the time. The article stated that an inventory of all churches and religious edifices would be done, the inventory of all movable and immovable assets in said establishments. What the article also promised was that it would do the inventory of all the state, départements, and municipalities assets within religious edifices and, according to Article 4, would transfer said assets to state, départements, and municipalities.72 This was particularly sensitive in Algeria where the Church was poor and dependent on said assets.73

The law also had a special article reserved for Algeria, on the application of the law in the territory. Article 43 of the law stated, at the time, that a decree by the Council of the State would determine the conditions in which the law will be applied in Algeria and the colonies. On the 27 of September 1907 the decree was issued, reciprocating that the same conditions of the law in France would be applied in Algeria. One exception was made, justified by national and public interests, that the General Governor of Algeria was reserved the right to grant, during a period of ten years, temporary indemnities to ministers designated by him who were part of a public “culte” that conformed to the prescribed guidelines.74_{Algeria was legally a part of}

France, and many republicans as others in France, did not consider Algeria a dominion, but as an integrated part of greater France,75_{so the application of the law in the 3 départements was}

70_Ibid

71_{"Loi Du 9 Décembre 1905 Concernant La Séparation Des Eglises Et De L'Etat." Légifrance, Le Service Public De L'accès Au Droit -}

Accueil. Accessed June 23 2020. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000508749

Exercsie of the cults, “cultes” in French is a religious denomination/organisation

72_Ibid

2015, p 170

74_{Portier, P. (2016). L'État et les religions en France: Une sociologie historique de la laïcité. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes., p}

159

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logical. But the precarious state of the Church in the colony and the poverty of it in comparison to its metropolitan counterpart spared it from the same treatment. The decree safeguarded the Church from being totally destitute, the indemnities provided by the colonial authorities to the Catholic Church and smaller, Jewish and protestant “cultes” helped the congregations to survive.76 The Church was nevertheless favoured over the other religious denominations, and received increasing indemnities over time.77 The Muslim faith was also granted these indemnities but received less money than the Catholic Church, the different faiths in Algeria were given exceptions as their survival could not be ensured without the help of the state,.

The application and enactment of the law was, as shown, not unanimously supported by parliament, the context in which the law was proposed was a polarised one. France was divided along political lines opposing the political left and right. On the left there were the republicans, the dominant ideology of the Third Republic, one that advocated a Republic, radical societal change and left-wing policies. But also “radicals”, those who adhered to the heritage of the French Revolution, anticlericalism and universal suffrage. Opposed to them, on the political right were the Catholics, who stood for the ancient regime and the active role of the Church in society. In general terms the political context was cleaved between Catholics and republicans. Within these two camps there were divergences and different groups. Those who were against the law were in general Catholics, anti-Semites, nationalists, conservatives (that hailed the heritage of the ancien regime) and revanchists, who wanted revenge for the French defeat against Prussia in 1871. An example of this is the general Boulanger who ran for the elections in 1889. The revanchists were active in French politics until World War I and on the fringes of the French far-right. Those in favour of the law were made up of republicans, radicals, freemasons, anti-clericals, anarchists, protestants and Jews. Protestants and Jews had their own reasons to be in favour of the application of the law as that meant the Church and Catholics would not be favoured by the state anymore. It would level the field between the different religions in France.

Nevertheless, the laicisation of the French public sphere was not the only thing dividing opinions. The Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfuss was accused in 1894 of selling secrets to the Germans and was thus dishonoured and stripped of his military ranks. He was later convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment in Guyana. When information came out in 1896

2015, p 334

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that another man was responsible for selling military secrets it was silenced but news came out nonetheless and sparked a nation-wide debate on the issue and of antisemitism in French society.78 A similar dichotomy is prevalent here, on one side, republicans, freemasons and anti-clericals sided supporting the pardon on Dreyfus, the “Dreyfusards”, and, on the other side, those that were more right-wing, the nationalist, pro-army and generally Catholic, called Anti-Dreyfusard, who believed Dreyfus to be guilty, because he was a Jew. This scandal thus radicalised and embittered French politics from 1894 until 1906, 79_{when Dreyfus was reinstated}

with and given back his medal and honours from the army. During this period, in the newspaper

La Croix d’Algérie et de la Tunisie we see examples of how the Anti-Dreyfusard and clericals

reaffirm their opposition to the republicans and freemasons who are Dreyfusard.80_{The context}

of the time reinforced the already existing opposition, in an environment where the Third Republic was pushing the laicisation process forward with the 1901 law on religious congregations, and years prior to that with the Ferry laws on education. In 1904 a law was passed on closure of religious schools, and set a deadline of ten years to do so. Causing outrage amongst the Catholics in France and Algeria, who felt that there religious identity was being infringed upon. Republicans in France and Algeria celebrated this as it would be another victory for the laicisation of France, and they hailed the spread of laic schools and the eventual total laicisation of education. Indeed, the Third Republic was converting the French population in France and Algeria slowly but surely to the laic ideals of the Republic. The inventories of the churches and religious establishments promised by the 1905 law flared feelings up as well, in Algeria just as in France. For example the Catholic community in Algeria took great offense to see the state impede on holy ground and desecrate the churches.81 The context in which this paper evolves is one characterised by a volatile political atmosphere, in which opposing visions of France were pitted against each other. The tensions between the two camps ran deep and manifested themselves in the North African territory.

78_{“L'affaire Dreyfus.” justice.gouv.fr, August 23, 2011.}

http://www.justice.gouv.fr/histoire-et-patrimoine-10050/proces-historiques-10411/laffaire-dreyfus-22696.html.

79_{Daughton J.P, An Empire Divided: Religion, Republicanism and the making of French Colonialism, 1880 -1914, New York, Owford}

University press (2006) p. 8.

80_{Saphos, “Cléricalisme et enseignement laïque” La Croix de Algérie et de la Tunisie, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica, 15 October}

1899, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k57923425.item

81_{La séparation en Algérie, les inventaires – Protestation Catholiques”, La Croix de Algérie et de la Tunisie, Bibliothèque nationale de}

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B. Political landscape and Demographics

The switch from monarchy to Republic, the secularisation of the public sphere and the Affaire Dreyfus all helped polarise French politics and consolidate the two camps, split in general terms between republicans and Catholics. The two sides of the political spectrum did not limit themselves to the metropole but also reached out into the colonies and into Algeria. The North African territory became a battleground for political disputes that originated in the metropole. The special status of the colony led metropolitan politics to become local politics and vocal political actors in France would find their equivalent in Algeria.

Before going into the political landscape in Algeria at the time, it is important to note that the settlers in Algeria, whatever their political inclination may be, held more negative views of the indigenous people then their metropolitan counterparts did, those in the metropole often professed a paternalistic view of the indigenous populations. While some settlers in the colony, mostly republicans, held arabophile views and encouraged their emancipation,82_{most settlers}

opposed the assimilation and emancipation of the indigenous Algerians, on the grounds that they were violent and not to be trusted. This feeling of mistrust and hostility towards the indigenous population was a general sentiment amongst the settlers, be they republican or right-wing voting settlers.

An important point to note is that in Algeria during the colonial period, and the period of study from 1890 to 1914, the republicans, radicals and socialists dominated the Algerian seats in the French parliament. Six seats were dedicated to the Algerian voters to go to the French parliament, some members of parliament, such as Gaston, Arnold, Marie Thomson and Eugène Etienne, retained their seat for parliament for decades. Gaston, Arnold, Marie Thomson kept his seat from 1877 to 1932 as a republican and socialist member of parliament,83 and Eugène Etienne kept his seat as a republican and radical member of parliament.84 The Algerian seats for the parliament were for the large part of its existence dominated by the republican left and the ideals of the Third Republic. During the entire period of interest for this thesis, except between 1898 and 1902, the republican left dominated the Algerian seats. The noticeable exception in this, is in 1898 to 1902 when Algeria was hit with a large wave of anti-Semitism

83_{Nationale, A. (n.d.). Assemblée nationale. Retrieved June 23, 2020, from}

http://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/sycomore/fiche/(num_dept)/7055

84_{Nationale, A. (n.d.). Assemblée nationale. Retrieved June 23, 2020, from}

Republican or Catholic Civilisation in French Algeria The Debate on the Application of the Law on the Separation of Church and State in Colonial Algeria, 1890-1914