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Alexandre Millerand
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(b. Paris, 10 Feb. 1859; d. 6 Apr. 1943) French; Prime Minister 1919 – 20, President of the Republic 1920 – 4 Alexandre Millerand was born in Paris and came from a hardworking family of shopkeepers. He studied law, became a barrister, and plunged when still in his twenties into the political life of Paris, which would be his base for over three decades. In 1884, he was elected to the Paris municipal council and the following year entered the Chamber of Deputies. His initial political sympathies lay with the left-wing radicalism of Clemenceau but in the early 1890s he moved over to the emerging socialist movement. His decision was motivated by his work as a barrister defending workers' rights. In 1896, in a celebrated speech in his Saint Mandé constituency, he set out the elements of a programme which virtually all the socialist factions could accept and which combined the Marxist belief in the collectivization of property with a commitment to patriotism and to the principles of Republican democracy. It was this commitment to Republicanism which led to his controversial decision in 1899 to join the government of Republican defence formed at the height of the Dreyfus Affair by Waldeck-Rousseau. Many Socialists condemned his participation in a bourgeois government. Millerand argued that the Republic was worth defending and used his three years as Minister of Commerce to introduce a number of laws which improved the legal rights of trade unions and the social rights of workers.
By 1914, Millerand had moved far from his political origins and his professional activities increasingly concentrated on highly paid commercial litigation. He opposed the anti-clerical enthusiasms of the 1902 Combes government, and of the Radical Party which supported them, and was expelled from the Socialist Party. His earlier interest in social issues was replaced by a fascination with foreign and defence questions. He was Minister of War in Poincaré's 1912 government and was a strong supporter of the Three Years Law extending the length of military service. Back at the War Ministry from August 1914 to October 1915, he was criticized for the total backing he gave to the army high command and for his opposition to parliamentary attempts to intervene in the conduct of military operations. In early 1919 he was briefly High Commissioner for the Liberated Regions of Alsace Lorraine and then led the conservative coalition known as the Bloc National for the 1919 elections. His Ba Ta Clan speech which argued for a stronger Executive and denounced the perils of Bolshevism — and by extension socialism — set the tone for a campaign which saw the Bloc National sweep to power. In December 1919 Millerand was appointed Prime Minister with a programme that linked military support for the enemies of the Soviet Union with rigorous insistence on Germany's implementation of the reparation clauses of the Versailles Peace Treaty. Less than a year later he was triumphantly elected President of the Republic, following the enforced resignation of his predecessor.
He immediately showed that his determination to break with the constitutional convention that a president should be a figurehead by involving himself closely with policy-making. He proved to be the most interventionist president in the history of the Third Republic and in 1922 provoked the resignation of his Prime Minister
So long as the Bloc National remained in power Millerand's assertiveness was not a problem. But in the run-up to the 1924 elections he intervened publicly in favour of the outgoing majority and against the Socialist-Radical opposition headed by Blum and Herriott. When the latter won the elections, they turned on a President whom they regarded as a renegade and as a threat to parliamentary democracy. The new majority refused to co-operate with Millerand, declaring that his continuation in office would "offend the Republican conscience". Millerand was thus forced to resign. He attempted unsuccessfully to create a mass movement, the National Republican League (the title indicated its politics) and spent the last years of his career in semi-obscurity in the Senate. He died in 1943.
Efficient and uncharismatic, Millerand has never acquired the historical status of Clemenceau or Poincaré and remains a neglected figure. His attempt to strengthen the presidency made him an easy target for the defenders of Republican democracy and his anti-Communism led to comparisons with other Socialist renegades like the German Noske. Yet the reforms he introduced between 1899 and 1902 did inaugurate a new era in French social policy; and even after his move to the right, he never adopted the anti-democratic views to which other former Socialists succumbed.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Alexandre Millerand |
Millerand, Alexandre (älĕksäN'drə mēlräN'), 1859-1943, French politician, president of France (1920-24). A Socialist member of the chamber of deputies, he was the first Socialist to serve in a bourgeois cabinet; he was (1899-1902) minister of commerce in the ministry of Rene Waldeck-Rousseau. Millerand was sharply criticized by his party for accepting the post and was also censured for supporting antilabor decisions. He was eventually expelled from the Socialist party. Moving further to the right on the political spectrum, he became an ardent nationalist and, as minister of war (1912-13), he attempted to restore the morale and prestige of the army. He was again minister of war in 1914-15, and after World War I he became commissioner general in recovered Alsace and Lorraine (1919) and premier (1920). In 1920 he succeeded Paul Deschanel as president. Opposed by the newly elected (1924) chamber of deputies, which had a socialist and radical majority, and accused of favoring the right, Millerand was forced to resign. Gaston Doumergue succeeded him. Elected (1925) to the senate, Millerand continued to exert influence as a rightist and nationalist.
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| Alexandre Millerand | |
 Millerand circa 1918 |
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| In office 23 September 1920 – 11 June 1924 Acting President from 21 September |
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| Prime Minister | Himself Georges Leygues Aristide Briand Raymond Poincare Frédéric François-Marsal |
| Preceded by | Paul Deschanel |
| Succeeded by | Gaston Doumergue |
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| In office 20 January 1920 – 24 September 1920 |
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| President | Raymond Poincare Paul Deschanel Himself (acting) |
| Preceded by | Georges Clemenceau |
| Succeeded by | Georges Leygues |
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| In office 23 September 1920 – 11 June 1924 Served alongside: Justí Guitart i Vilardebó |
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| Preceded by | Paul Deschanel |
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| Born | 10 February 1859 |
| Died | 7 April 1943 (aged 84) |
| Nationality | French |
| Political party | Parti Socialiste de France |
Alexandre Millerand (10 February 1859 – 7 April 1943) was a French socialist politician. He was President of France from 23 September 1920 to 11 June 1924 and Prime Minister of France 20 January to 23 September 1920. His participation in Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet at the turn of the century, alongside the marquis de Galliffet who had directed the repression of the 1871 Paris Commune, sparked a debate in the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) and in the Second International about the participation of socialists in "bourgeois governments".
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Biography
Early activism
Born in Paris, he was educated for the Bar, and made his reputation by his defence, in company with Georges Laguerre, of Ernest Roche and Duc-Quercy, the instigators of the strike at Decazeville in 1883; he then took Laguerre's place on Georges Clemenceau's paper, La Justice. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Seine département in 1885 as a Radical Socialist. He was associated with Clemenceau and Camille Pelletan as an arbitrator in the Carmaux strike (1892). He had long had the ear of the Chamber in matters of social legislation, and after the Panama scandals had discredited so many politicians his influence grew.
As member of the executive
He was chief of the Socialist faction (the Parti Socialiste de France in 1899), a group which then mustered sixty members, and edited until 1896 their organ in the press, La Petite République. His programme included the collective ownership of the means of production and the international association of labour, but, when in June 1899 he entered Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet of "republican defence" as Minister of Commerce, he limited himself to practical reforms, devoting his attention to the improvement of the mercantile marine, to the development of trade, of technical education, of the postal system, and to the amelioration of the conditions of labour. Labour questions were entrusted to a separate department, the Direction du Travail, and the pension and insurance office was also raised to the status of a "direction".
The introduction of trade union representatives on the Supreme Labour Council, the organization of local labour councils, and the instructions to factory inspectors to put themselves in communication with the councils of the trade unions, were valuable concessions to labour, and he further secured the rigorous application of earlier laws devised for the protection of the working class. His name was especially associated with a project for the establishment of old age pensions, which became law in 1905. In 1898, he became editor of La Lanterne.
His influence with the far left had already declined, for it was said that his departure from the true Marxist tradition had disintegrated the party. He was expelled from the group in 1903, and continued to move to the right, being appointed Prime Minister by the conservative President Paul Deschanel in 1920.
Presidency and later years
When Deschanel had to resign later that year due to his mental disorder, Millerand emerged as a compromise candidate for President between the Bloc National and the remnants of the Bloc des gauches. Millerand appointed Georges Leygues, a politician with a long career of ministerial office, as Prime Minister and attempted to strengthen the executive powers of the Presidency. This move was resisted in the Chamber of Deputies and the French Senate, and Millerand was forced to appoint a stronger figure, Aristide Briand. Briand's appointment was welcomed by both left and right, although the Socialists and the left wing of the Radical Party did not join his government. However, Millerand dismissed Briand after just a year, and appointed the conservative republican Raymond Poincaré.
Millerand was accused of favouring conservatives in spite of the traditional neutrality of French Presidents and the composition of the legislature. On 14 July 1922, Millerand escaped an assassination attempt by Gustave Bouvet, a young French anarchist. Two years later, Millerand resigned in the face of growing conflict between the elected legislature and the office of the President, following the victory of the Cartel des Gauches. Gaston Doumergue, who was the president of the Senate at the time, was chosen to replace Millerand.
Alexandre Millerand died in 1943 at Versailles, and was interred in the Passy Cemetery.
Millerand's Ministry, 20 January 1920 – 24 September 1920
- Alexandre Millerand - President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs
- André Lefèvre - Minister of War
- Théodore Steeg - Minister of the Interior
- Frédéric François-Marsal - Minister of Finance
- Paul Jourdain - Minister of Labour
- Gustave L'Hopiteau - Minister of Justice
- Adolphe Landry - Minister of Marine
- André Honnorat - Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts
- André Maginot - Minister of War Pensions, Grants, and Allowances
- Joseph Ricard - Minister of Agriculture
- Albert Sarraut - Minister of Colonies
- Yves Le Trocquer - Minister of Public Works
- Auguste Isaac - Minister of Commerce and Industry
- Émile Ogier - Minister of Liberated Regions
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References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Paul Delombre |
Minister of Commerce, Industry, Posts, and Telegraphs 1899 – 1902 |
Succeeded by Georges Trouillot |
| Preceded by Louis Barthou |
Minister of Public Works, Posts, and Telegraphs 1909 – 1910 |
Succeeded by Louis Puech |
| Preceded by Adolphe Messimy |
Minister of War 1912 – 1913 |
Succeeded by Albert Lebrun |
| Preceded by Adolphe Messimy |
Minister of War 1914 – 1915 |
Succeeded by Joseph Galliéni |
| Preceded by Georges Clemenceau |
Prime Minister of France 1920 |
Succeeded by Georges Leygues |
| Preceded by Stéphen Pichon |
Minister of Foreign Affairs 1920 |
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| Preceded by Paul Deschanel |
President of France 1920 – 1924 |
Succeeded by Gaston Doumergue |
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