ABSTRACT
By studying the cases of 16 French and German cities in the nineteenth century, this chapter sheds light on the interactions between Catholic organizations involved in social welfare and city councils, whose welfare policies were being overhauled. After the French Revolution, private charitable organizations and local public welfare had established pacified relations. City councils were in fact taking up the ancient practice of cooperating with private initiatives. At the end of the nineteenth century, the issues surrounding welfare gained an increasing importance in the context of a new competition for influence and of the politicization of city councils’ action. Yet, if conflicts appeared, the comparison between German and French cities shows that the extent of the conflicts itself may be qualified. In almost all the cities of the study, there does not seem to have been any instance of a permanent and merciless war waged between city councils and private initiatives. The attacks led by the advocates of secularism were neither that consistent nor that determined. In the beginning of the twentieth century, a well-accepted ‘philanthropic consensus’ thus seems to have prevailed in some German cities, whereas in many French cities, it was often officially rejected while being unofficially tolerated.
