Emile Combes

Emile Combes , born with Roquecourbe (Tarn) the June 6th 1835 and died in Pons (Charente-Maritime) the May 25th 1921, is a Politician French.

Its life

He is resulting from a relatively poor family. Pushed by his uncle, priest, the Gaubert abbot, it follows studies to the seminar and becomes Doctor of Divinity in 1860. It loses the faith and gives up the Eglise in the middle of the years 1860, and then undertakes to follow studies of medicine. Diploma in hand, it settles in the small town of Pons (into Charente-Lower, from now on in Charente-Maritime), where it installs its cabinet. It there is elected mayor in 1876, and will hold this station until in 1919. He is elected senator of Charente-Lower in 1885 and becomes president of the Democratic Left.

He enters to the ministry for the state education in 1895. In 1902, it is indicated President of the Council and then follows a policy known as of the “combism” strongly anticlerical, who will carry out in 1905 to the law of separation of the Churches and the State and with the result of the public school in France. But he resigns in 1905, before this law is not promulgated on December 9th 1905, following the Affaire of the cards.

He is then president of the Radical party in 1911 - 1912, minister of state in the government of National union in 1915, will remain mayor of Pons until in 1919 and Senator until his death in 1921.

Its political work

Elected official senator in 1885, it becomes one of the leaders of the Radicalisme. It is noted that the Sénat, however conceived at the beginning by the line to try to establish a preserving stronghold, attracts also men of the left. Its seat indeed enables him to take part in the formation of a group called the democratic Left, which it directs in 1894. It succeeds Waldeck-Rousseau with the presidency of the Council (May 1902). It benefits from a comfortable majority by 368 against 220, including 48 Socialists, 90 various radical socialists, 129 radicals and 99 republicans. The Délégation of the lefts (Democratic Union, Radicals, Radical socialists and Socialists) meets with the Cabinet to regulate the problems likely to emerge. Combes thus establishes with the Room a constant dialog. Jean Jaurès gains a paramount role there. Combes avoids the Senate as often as possible, to approach the republican ideal: a single and sovereign Parliament. He wants to also use all the means to support the friends of the mode, against his enemies. A circular of Combes to the Prefect S, on June 20th, 1902, thus requires to support “characters and bodies sincerely devoted to the mode”. It purifies the administration, the magistrature and the army in order to durably sit the republican and laic framing of the State. The radicals become an essential component of IIIe République.

The Anticléricalisme of which it makes proof is relatively paradoxical for a man resulting from a medium religious and intended for the priesthood. It is however with intransigence that it applies the laws of 1901 and 1904 to the right of associations and the freedom of teaching of the religious congregations: more: 2500 private educational establishments are then closed. The catholics resist, and one must employ the force. All the congregations of women are dissolved, alone five congregations of men remain. Combes considers that the fight against the Church strengthens and glorifie the Republic. It ends up engaging in a conflict with the the Vatican about interpretation of the Concordat of 1801. Combes benefits from the succession of Leon XIII, which sees arriving an intransigent pope, Pie X. At once, the embassy of France at the Vatican is withdrawn, without breaking the diplomatic relations with the Holy See. Combes is not truly opposite with the Legal settlement, is even savagely opposed in a separation of the Church and the State, which can seem paradoxical. In truth, it needs this instrument of pressure which binds the Church to the State. To separate some, it is to take the risk of a revival of the Church. Proof is that it preserves a permanent contact, although thin, between the State and the Church. In the same way, in 1902, it pushes back 8 proposals to arrange them in a commission on March 11th 1903 to examine these proposals and to write a bill.

Attacked by the catholics, then gradually by the Socialists, the Affaire of the cards will cause its ruin. They are in fact information sheets on the political opinions and nuns the officers. The revelation of this process, in the line line of the combism, denounced with the platform, makes fall the ministerial majority to four votes, on October 28th 1904. One reproaches Combes a system denouncement extending to all the administrations. Paul Doumer reproach in Combes to be “a recent republican attached to the processes Bonapartists”. Without waiting to be put in minority, Combes and its ministry withdraw on January 19th 1905.

Symbol of the policy anticlerical and prolog with the separation of the Church and the State, the expression “Combisme” is essential. However, Emile Combes, often held for single person in charge of the social crisis, policy and nun in germ, does nothing but translate into acts the militancy of the Bloc of the lefts (radical and socialist). But the anticlericalism in which the lefts had met is a dead end. France is impossible with déchristianiser, and the republican face divides. The Separation of the Church and the State in 1905 will put a term at it.

Random links: