In terms of his home policy, one of Napoleon I’s glories was to have achieved French national unity, via centralisation (indispensable at the time), via the recreation of intermediary bodies that the Revolution had suppressed (the Légion d’honneur, the notables, the Chambers of commerce, etc.) and by peace at home, both in the West of France and also in religious matters.
As part of these latter issues, in addition to the restoration, but under State control, of the Roman Catholic religion (despite the conflict with the Papacy), the creation of structures for the Protestant church and the affirmation of the non-confessional nature of the State, he pursued this systematic process also with the effective and definitive integration (his word was “assimilation”) of the Jews in France. Our close-up this week is about the decisions taken after two major consultations: that of an assembly of Jewish notables and that of a Great Sanhedrin, composed of laymen and rabbis. The first regulatory decrees were promulgated on 17 March 1808, precisely 201 years ago.
It is true, we should not forget that the programme as a whole, that was intended to render “practical” and real the emancipation of 1790-1791, aimed at re-establishing law and order in the eastern parts of France, where there had almost been pogroms in 1805. That being said, the specificity of the Napoleonic scheme was, though it came at the price of certain injustices (moratorium on debts to Jews, prohibition for Jewish conscripts to find replacements, etc…), to regulate once and for all, and with the agreement of those directly concerned, all matters related to emancipation and integration. And in the face of no agreement, the State assumed its responsibilities, taking as its line of action the idea of “general interest”.
These decisions bore fruit. And, despite the antisemitism of some (far too many and far too often listened to) throughout the last two centuries, and despite the complicity of the French State (the Vichy regime) in the Shoah, our Jewish fellow citizens have been, in law and in truth, an integral part of our French Nation. They have maintained strong religious and cultural traditions, and at the same time they have succeeded – because it was what they wanted, starting with their religious authorities – in applying and even developing the Napoleonic programme: freedom of worship whilst respecting national laws and national unity.
The texts of 1808, though flawed, were an important step along the road to assimilation. Furthermore, at the fall of the Empire, when Louis XVIII did not alter the legislation of 1808 and Louis-Philippe was to decide that rabbis should be state-funded (as was the case for Catholic priests and Protestant ministers), the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, now detached from France, sent delegations to the Congress of Vienna begging the negotiators not to deprive them of the Napoleonic legislation, only to receive partial success in Germany and none whatsoever in Russian-administered Poland.
In the light of this two-hundred-year-old story – and one which is in many respects very recent, since the presence of the Jews in France goes back to time immemorial -, certain recent events in France including insults to our fellow citizens because of their beliefs, antisemitic graffiti, profanations of cemeteries, and Jewish school pupils excluded from certain schools, excite not only my extreme indignation but also my desire to go beyond ‘thoughts and prayers’ to action.
Thierry Lentz
Director of the Fondation Napoléon
(English translation PH)