Combes, Émile (āmēl` kôNb), 1835–1921, French statesman. An able politician of the left democratic group, he was minister of education under Léon Bourgeois (1895–96) and, succeeding René Waldeck-Rousseau, was (1902–5) premier and minister of interior and religion. Anticlericalism, growing out of the Dreyfus Affair Dreyfus Affair (drā`fəs, drī–), the controversy that occurred with the treason conviction (1894) of Capt.
..... Click the link for more information. , was rampant, and Combes rigorously enforced the law of 1901 requiring religious associations to seek government authorization. He abolished religious education and initiated the separation of church and state in France; abrogation of the Concordat of 1801 Concordat of 1801, agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII that reestablished the Roman Catholic Church in France. Napoleon took the initiative in negotiating this agreement; he recognized that reconciliation with the church was politic.
..... Click the link for more information. was formalized in 1905 in a law introduced by Aristide Briand Briand, Aristide (ärēstēd` brēäN`), 1862–1932, French statesman.
..... Click the link for more information. . Combes was a member of the Briand cabinet in World War I.

Combes, (Justin-Louis-) Émile

(born Sept. 6, 1835, Roquecourbe, France—died May 25, 1921, Pons) French politician. He became mayor of Pons in 1875 and was elected to the Senate in 1885 as a member of the anticlerical Radical Party. As premier (1902–05), he presided over the separation of church and state in the wake of the Alfred Dreyfus affair. He agreed to laws exiling almost all religious orders from France and dismantling major aspects of the church's public functions, especially in education. Admired by many republicans, he later served as minister without portfolio (1915), despite his advanced age.