Catholics and Antisemitic Violence in Fin-de-siècle France

This paper will examine the involvement of French Catholics in the antisemitic movement led by Edouard Drumont that arose in France in the 1880s and 90s. Although it has frequently been argued that Catholic antisemitism, in contrast to modern racial antisemitism, was never racial nor violent, this paper will argue that a form of racial antisemitism that was extremely violent had already arisen in Catholic circles in the late 1870s and early 1880s in response to the anticlerical campaigns sponsored by the republicans who came to power in the late 1870s.  Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the publication of Drumont's La France juive in 1886 galvanized this trend, and racheted up the level of rhetorical violence significantly.  We will examine the way in which this violent rhetoric manifested itself in charges of ritual murder, diatribes against the Talmud, extensive cooperation with the French antisemitic League, led by Drumont and Jules Guérin, and attempts to curb the rights of Jews in parliament even before the Dreyfus Affair.  We will also look ahead to the role of Catholics in the antisemitic violence that surfaced in early 1898 during the Dreyfus Affair.  Finally, some attempt will be made to compare this antisemitic movement to antisemitic movements elsewhere in Europe at the time.