FRANCE: Presidents, Premiers

From the kaleidoscope of French politics a myriad names are projected daily, hourly, upon the news. Amid this evanescence and confusion only a few personalities are really permanent. Since the War exactly ten Frenchmen have held the 4 Presidencies and 17 Premierships of that period.

PRESIDENTS

Raymond Poincarè (1913-1920), 66, lawyer, Senator, twice Minister of Finance, opened the Peace Conference, served for a year as President of the Reparations Commission, four times Premier. (See NEW CABINET.) His unquenchable patriotism, high courage, unflagging energy, and implacable hatred of Germany have never been questioned.

Throughout the War he was regarded in Allied countries as the vigilant apostle of preparedness to whom France owed her ability to resist the German hordes. At present the so-called “revisionist historians” are busy with piles of documents released from the secret archives of Austria-Hungary and Russia, on the basis of which M. Poincarè is charged with being the chief and successful arch-plotter of the World War.

Crimination and recrimination on his “guilt” seems likely to continue for a century at least. The “revisionist” position has just been briefly and crisply summarized by Professor Barnes of Vassar in his Genesis of the World War (Knopf, 1926).

Paul Eugene Louis Deschanel (1920), died in 1922 at 65, “the National Orator,” several times President of the Chamber of Deputies, indefatigable spellbinding literateur, defeated Clemenceau for the Presidency largely by his ability to draw tears or laughter from any audience at will.

Foreigners remember M. Deschanel chiefly because—on May 24, 1920—he leaned from a window of the Presidential train, fell out clad in pajamas, suffered a nervous breakdown, resigned the Presidency on September 20.

Alexandre Millerand (1920-1924), 67, a lawyer of Clarence Darrow calibre, for 40 years a Deputy, the outstanding World War French War Minister, subsequently Commissioner-General for Alsace-Lorraine, a lifelong champion of decentralized government, pugnacious, obstinate, cursed by a lack of political foresight, prominent in the die-hard political Right, forced to resign the Presidency when Herriot succeeded in forming the Coalition of Left Parties.

Pierre Paul Henri Gaston Doumergue (1924—to the present), 63, “first Protestant and lucky 13th President of France.”

M. Doumergue has been nicknamed “Le President qui rit.” His smile is infectious. He speaks with all his heart and his heart is good, sensible, generous. A sturdy Gascon of Nîmes, he loves an occasional bull fight. “They please me,” he once declared with habitual caution, “more than do some other spectacles that are supposed to be pleasant.” The “other spectacles” included nothing not mentionable. M. Le President, though a bachelor, is accounted among the most celibate of that ilk.

His “career” began when, after becoming an influential lawyer at Nîmes, he was sent as a beady-eyed, black-mustached Magistrate, first to Indo-China (1890-92) and then to Algeria (1892-93). Returning, he was elected a Deputy, became a noted authority on colonial administration, held several of the lesser Ministries, became a Senator in 1910, and Premier (1910-13).

Throughout the War he served with distinction as Colonial Minister and then became President of the Senate (1923-24).

Few French statesmen are more genuinely beloved. While his fellows clawed and slashed their bitter tscandal-strewn way to power, Gaston Doumergue disarmed his enemies and heartened his friends with a smile, proved by daily application his notable if not transcendent abilities, and was happily wafted up to the Presidency.

Though he rode into that office as a Radical-Socialist when the electorate returned the present “Left Parliament”* in 1924, M. Doumergue is neither “radical” nor “socialist” but a “liberal” endowed with common sense. He has exercised with great tact and ability the thankless role of a President compelled to appoint 9 Ministries of widely varying political complexions within 25 months.

Serene, he resides complacently at the luxurious Palais d’Elysee, gives his famous “little banquets,” sips the wine of life as a connoiseur.

PREMIERS

Georges Clemenceau (Nov. 16, 1917, to Jan. 17, 1920), 85, most illustrious of living Frenchmen, first internationally famed for his successful championship with Zola of Captain Dreyfus. (See TIME, Jan. 4, FRANCE, “Tiger, Tiger!” for a life sketch.) He retired from public life, embittered, when defeated for the Presidency by “that vol-au-vent” (windbag) Paul Deschanel.

Alexandre Millerand (January to February and February to September, 1920. See above). He “logically” succeeded Clemenceau upon the latter’s resignation, as one of the outstanding politicians of the Right. During the two terms in question he showed great independence in picking able Ministers from outside his own party (Nationalist), weathered an attack by Theodore Steeg, now French Resident-General to Morocco, and increased so greatly in prestige that he was elected President of the Republic by a vote of 695 to 892 on the resignation of President Deschanel. (See above.)

Georges Jean Claude Leygues (September, 1920, to January, 1921), 68, journalist, poet, historian, ministerial veteran of the 90’s under the late famed Premier Waldeck-Rousseau. He succeeded Millerand upon the latter’s ascension to the Presidency, and dutifully continued a loyal henchman of the Right.

Aristide Briand (January, 1921, to January, 1922), 64, veteran “Left” spellbinder, ten times Premier. He was appointed for the term in question because his supreme ability as a negotiator was felt to be requisite in dealing with the then pressing problem of security arising out of the Peace Treaties. He represented France at the Washington Naval Disarmament Conference (November, 1921), but was overthrown by the “Right” when he attempted to negotiate security with Lloyd George at the ill-starred Cannes Conference.

Raymond Poincaré (January, 1922, to March, 1924, and March, 1924, to June, 1924. See above). As victorious leader of the Right, he reversed the conciliatory foreign policy of Briand and attempted coercion and strangulation of Germany by occupying the Ruhr. The growing potency of the Left forced an abandonment of this policy, the fall of Poincarèand the resignation of President Millerand, who was accused of sullying the traditional impartiality of his high office to aid the Right against the Left.

Frédéric Francois-Marshal (June, 9 to 13, 1924), 52, Senator, potent banker, appointed to tide over the crisis just described. He served for only four days, until President Doumergue and Premier Herriot took office.

Edouard Herriot (June, 1924, to April, 1925), 54, demagog, Mayor and “boss” of Lyons, creator of Le Cartel des Gauches or Coalition of Left Parties which he formed after the Left victory at the last general election (May 11, 1924). Wielding the Cartel as a mightful sword, he cut his way through the Right to the Premiership, secured the election of M. Doumergue as President, and reigned for a year as “boss” of France.

His downfall came when it was discovered that he had evaded the problem of the depreciating franc by concealing inflation through countenancing the “fixing” of the books of the Bank of France.

Since then, until last week (see below), he has stood by and cut down Cabinet after Cabinet with his Cartel, though unable to command its loyalty sufficiently to retain the Premiership himself.

Paul Painlevé (April to October and October to November, 1925), 63, “the foremost French mathematician,” a World War French War Minister. During the first term in question his Finance Minister, M. Caillaux, failed either to negotiate a debt settlement with the U. S. or to bolster up the franc. During: his succeeding term Premier Painlevé took the Finance Ministry himself but with no better success, and “fell with the franc.”

Aristide Briand (four times Premier between November, 1925, and July 1926. See above). The four Cabinets in question have been bolstered up by M. Briand’s prestige as “the man of Locarno”* and successively wrecked by the impossibility of finding a majority in the Chamber to support any save-the-franc program whatever.

Edouard Herriot (see above) succeeded in overthrowing the last Briand Cabinet by attacking Finance Minister Caillaux’s save-the-franc-by-dictatorship program, and formed a weak Cartel Cabinet at an hour when France trembled on the brink of fiscal collapse, with the franc at 50 to the dollar.

Last week the situation had become so desperate that the Chamber overthrew Herriot, 290 to 237, while a mob estimated at 10,000 persons shouted, “A bas Herriot! A bas le Cartel!” outside the Palais Bourbon. So disastrous was “Boss” Herriot’s toboggan from power that he was obliged to enter the Elyseeèeby a back entrance to escape the mob when he sought President Doumergue to tender his resignation. Tidings, possibly premature, spread far and wide that the Cartel had been smashed at last.

Raymond Poincaré. (See NEW CABINET, below.)

*The President is elected by an absolute majority of the Chamber and Senate, sitting together as the National Assembly; i. e. — a “Right” President (Millerand) may feel obligated to resign, if a “Left” Parliament is returned, so that it may elect a “Left” President (Doumergue). Actually the present Par-liament is very unstably “Left”—a fact which has caused the recent bewildering series of overturned Cabinets.

—The Locarno Pacts, promising _ security at last, were negotiated by Briand as Foreign Minister under Premier Pain-leve (TIME, Oct. 12 et seq., INTERNATIONAL).