(b. Revel, 27 Aug. 1884; d. 1 Jan. 1966) French; President of the Fourth Republic 1947 – 54 Born in 1884 the son of a baker, Auriol grew up in the Southern French town of Revel. He used the educational opportunities provided by the Third Republic for bright working-class boys, studied law, and soon got involved in Socialist Party activism. Like many of his generation, he was inspired by the ideal of democratic socialism unifying Marxism and Republicanism preached by Jaurès and subsequently by Blum. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1914, Auriol rose quickly through the ranks of the parliamentary Socialist Party and became recognized as its leading economic expert. In the deteriorating political circumstances of the 1930s, the threat posed by the radical Right to the institutions of the Third Republic led to the formation of the Popular Front and the election in 1936 of a left-wing majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Auriol was appointed Minister of Finance in Blum's 1936 Popular Front government and had the difficult task of trying to reassure the business and finance communities that social reform was compatible with sound money. Having initially refused to devalue the franc, he was compelled to do so in October and to declare a pause in the government's social programme. The Popular Front experiment disintegrated in 1937 – 8 and Auriol left office.
In the traumatic events of 1940 which culminated in the defeat of France and the installation of Pétain's Vichy regime, Auriol was one of the few political leaders who refused to spit on the corpse of the Third Republic. He retired to his farm, was (briefly) able to shelter Léon Blum from the vengeful attentions of his newly powerful enemies and made no attempt to conceal his opposition to the regime and its leader. By 1942 he had gone into hiding to avoid detention; later he joined the Free French in Algiers. His credentials as a democratic Socialist and impeccable wartime record thus left him well placed to play a leading role in the complicated politics of liberated France. In 1946, as president of the Constituent Assembly, he did more than anyone to frame the constitutional texts of the Fourth Republic. It was this that led the National Assembly to elect him President of the Republic. His presidency was dominated by the need to defend the new constitutional order against the problems caused by a fragmented party system and the semi-subversive attacks of the Communist Party and de Gaulle's Rassemblement pour la France. In so doing he relied less on the formal powers of the presidency (which were few) or on appeals to public opinion, than on his insider's knowledge of France's political class and on his remaining constitutional rights over the appointment of governments. His posthumously published diaries reveal the extent of his role in shoring up the fragile ministries of the late 1940s. He also travelled widely in France and its empire.
Auriol's presidency came to an end in 1954 and he made no attempt to stand for re-election. He remained active, however, in Socialist politics and was one of those who negotiated with de Gaulle in 1958 over his return to power. He had initially welcomed de Gaulle's return. But his attachment to the political culture of democratic republicanism meant that he was unable to accept the increased presidentializing of the regime and in particular the 1962 amendment providing for the direct election of the President. Both challenged the principles of democratic republicanism which he had absorbed from Jaurès and Blum. He campaigned vigorously against the 1962 amendment.
Vincent Auriol
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- For other meanings, see also the disambiguation page Auriol
| Vincent Auriol | |
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| In office 28 November 1946 – 16 December 1946 |
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| Preceded by | Georges Bidault |
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| Succeeded by | Léon Blum |
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| In office 31 January 1946 – 21 January 1947 |
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| Preceded by | Felix Gouin |
| Succeeded by | Edouard Herriot |
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| In office 16 January 1947 – 16 January 1954 |
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| Preceded by | Albert Lebrun (no president from 1940 to 1947; Lebrun was the last President before) Léon Blum (President of the Provisional Government) |
| Succeeded by | René Coty |
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| Born | August 27, 1884 Revel, Haute-Garonne, France |
| Died | January 1, 1966 (aged 81) Paris, France |
| Birth name | Vincent Jules Auriol |
| Political party | SFIO |
| Spouse(s) | Michelle Aucouturier (1 June 1912 — death) |
| Children | Paul (15 Sep 1918) |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Religion | Atheist |
Vincent Jules Auriol (27 August, 1884 – 1 January, 1966) was a French politician who served as the first President of the Fourth Republic from 1947 to 1954. He also served as interim President of the Provisional Government (head of state and government) from November to December 1946, making him one of only three people (with Charles de Gaulle and Alain Poher) who were heads of state of the French Republic on two separate occasions.
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Early life and politics
Auriol was born in Revel, Haute-Garonne, as the only child of Jacques Antoine Auriol (1855—1933), a baker nicknamed Paul, and Angélique Virginie Durand (1862—1945)[1]. He earned a law degree at the Collège de Revel in 1904 and began his career as a lawyer in Toulouse. A committed socialist, Auriol co-founded the newspaper Le Midi Socialiste in 1908; he was head of the Association of Journalists in Toulouse at this time.
In 1914, Auriol entered the Chamber of Deputies as a Socialist Deputy for Muret, a position he retained until 1942.[2] He also served as Mayor of Muret from 3 May 1925 to 17 January 1947[1], and as a member of the Conseil Général of Haute-Garonne from 1928 to 17 January 1947. In December 1920, after the breakup of the SFIO, Auriol refused to join the newly created SFIC and became one of the leaders of the new SFIO (the remaining socialist minority), along with Léon Blum.
Auriol became the party's leading spokesman on financial issues. He chaired the Finance Committee in the Chamber of Deputies from 1924-1926. His first cabinet post was as Minister of Finance under Léon Blum, in which Auriol controversially devalued the French franc 30% against the United States dollar, leading to capital flight and greater economic unease. This and Blum's proposals for greater regulatory restrictions on industry led to Blum's resignation as Premier; in the next government, led by Camille Chautemps, Auriol was made Minister of Justice, then Minister of Coordination of Services of the Presidency of the Council in Blum's short-lived government in 1938. Édouard Daladier's conservative-Radical government formed on 10 April 1938 returned Auriol to the Chamber of Deputies.
Auriol was one of the 80 deputies who voted against the extraordinary powers given to Prime Minister Philippe Pétain on 10 July 1940 that brought about the Nazi-backed Vichy government. As a result, he was placed under house arrest until he escaped to the French Resistance in October 1942, and fought with the resistance for a year. Auriol fled to London in October 1943. He represented the Socialists at the Free French Consultative Assembly (organized by Charles de Gaulle in Algiers later that year). In July 1944, he represented France at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. He was a Minister of State in de Gaulle's second provisional government.
Postwar life and presidency
After World War II, Auriol served as Minister of State in de Gaulle's provisional government. He was also a member of the Constituent Assemblies which drafted the constitution of the short-lived French Fourth Republic, and was President of the assemblies. He lobbied for a "third force" between Communism and Gaullism. Auriol also led the French delegation to the United Nations and was France's first representative on the United Nations Security Council in 1946. He served as a Deputy for Haute-Garonne in the National Assembly from 1946 until 31 December 1947[2]. Meanwhile, the National Assembly elected him on 16 January 1947 as the first President of the Fourth Republic. Auriol was elected by a wide margin, receiving 452 votes (51.19%) against the 242 (27.41%) for the People's Republican Movement (MRP) candidate, Auguste Champetier de Ribes.
As president, Auriol pursued a relatively weak presidency as there had been under the Third Republic, and attempted to reconcile political factions within France and warm relations between France and its allies. He was criticized for France's ailing economy and political turmoil in the postwar period, and the war in Indochina. A series of debilitating strikes were waged across France in 1947, initiated by the Confédération Générale du Travail. The strikes escalated into violence in November of that year, leading, on 28 November, to the government deploying 80,000 French Army reservists to face the "insurrection". The PCF, who often supported the strikes, were expelled from the legislature in early December. The strikes ended on 10 December, but more would come in 1948, and again in 1953 in response to the Joseph Laniel government's austerity program.
Apart from the inconclusive war in Indochina, France's colonial empire decayed under Auriol's presidency. Clashes in Morocco, Madagascar, Algeria, and Tunisia became more frequent; an Algerian independence movement, the Front de Libération Nationale, was founded in 1951, in 1953 the French overthrew Mohammed V, the Sultan of Morocco, after he demanded greater autonomy. France also waged a brutal war of repression in Madagascar, and imprisoned Tunisian independence leader Habib Bourguiba in 1952.
When Auriol's term as president expired, he did not run for a second, and was succeeded by René Coty as President of France on 16 January 1954. Auriol commented on leaving office: "The work was killing me; they called me out of bed at all hours of the night to receive resignations of prime ministers"[3] (there were eighteen different governments during his seven years as President.)
After his presidency, Auriol assumed the role of elder statesman, and wrote articles on political topics. Auriol became a member of the Constitutional Council of France in 1958 at the establishment of the French Fifth Republic; he resigned from the SFIO in the same year. He unsuccessfully lobbied against the constitution in the 1958 national referendum, and resigned from his position on the Constitutional Council in 1960 to protest the growing power of Charles de Gaulle's presidency. In 1965, he endorsed François Mitterrand for the Presidency.
On 1 January 1966, Vincent Auriol died in hospital in the 7th arrondissement of Paris[4] and was buried at Muret, Haute-Garonne.
See also
References
Sources
- Scouting Round the World, John S. Wilson, first edition, Blandford Press 1959, p. 150
- (French) Biography on the French National Assembly's website
- (French) French National Archives
Notes
- ^ a b See Auriol's extensive biography by Jacques Batigne on lauragais-patrimoine.fr (French)
- ^ a b See the list of his mandates as a deputy on assembleenationale.fr (French)
- ^ http://www.bartleby.com/63/10/10.html
- ^ http://www.assembleenationale.fr/histoire/biographies/IVRepublique/Auriol-Vincent-Jules-27081884.asp
External links
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Marcel Régnier |
Minister of Finance 1936–1937 |
Succeeded by Georges Bonnet |
| Preceded by Marc Rucart |
Minister of Justice 1937–1938 |
Succeeded by César Campinchi |
| Preceded by – |
Minister of Coordination of Services of the Presidency of the Council 1938 |
Succeeded by – |
| Preceded by Georges Bidault |
Interim President of the Provisional Government 1946–1946 |
Succeeded by Léon Blum |
| Preceded by Léon Blum (Chairman of the Provisional Government) |
President of France 1947–1954 |
Succeeded by René Coty |
| Preceded by Félix Gouin |
President of the National Assembly 1946 |
Succeeded by Edouard Herriot |
| Regnal titles | ||
| Preceded by Georges Bidault and Ramon Iglesias i Navarri |
Co-Prince of Andorra 1947-1954 with Ramon Iglesias i Navarri |
Succeeded by René Coty and Ramon Iglesias i Navarri |
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