Regards allemands sur la Séparation française des Églises et de l’État. Les débats de la presse d’opinion (1905-1907)

Abstract

This article proposes to study the French separation of Church and State from a new and external point of view: that of the German at the beginning of the twentieth century. To do so, it is based on a systematic study of some fifteen titles in the German press between 1904 and 1907. This perspective leads, first of all, to an objectification of the reading grids specific to the German society in the Second Empire. It leads, then, to the observation of a fragmentation of German opinion into four representative tendencies which makes it possible to embrace the various political and confessional currents that marked German society at the beginning of the century. Finally, this study makes it possible to identify deeper movements that marked society in the relationship between politics, society and religion. The French separation offers a particular opportunity to analyze the process of secularization of German society, which, because of the way it was perceived by its contemporaries, is the subject of considerable debate. The topics raised by the study of the French Separation, beyond its approval or rejection by the various German opinions, are full of teachings. The debates on the role of the state in religious neutrality or on the place of the Pope and Catholic ultramontanism in society provide us with information on the state of mind of German society at the beginning of the 20th century. To conclude this article, a linguistic study allows us to grasp the partial penetration of the vocabulary of “laicity” in the German politico-religious universe, which partly explains its failures to establish itself there permanently.

Keywords

• Separation of Church
• Law of 1905
• Laicity
• Secularization