Schwarzfeld's activities having rendered him objectionable to the National Liberal government of Ion Brătianu, he was expelled October 17, 1885, only forty-eight hours being given to him to arrange his personal affairs. Driven out of Romania at roughly the same time as Gaster, who had also spoken out against official antisemitism, he consequently moved to France, settling in Paris. In 1886, he was appointed by Baron Maurice de Hirsch secretary of his private bureau of charity. When Hirsch founded the Jewish Colonization Association (1891), Schwarzfeld became its secretary-general; up to the death of Clara Baroness Hirsch he acted as her secretary in the distribution of her charities. Eventually, Schwarzfeld was naturalized a French citizen.