Emile Loubet

Émile Loubet (Marsanne, Drôme, December 30, 1838 – Montélimar, Drôme, December 20, 1929) was a French politician and statesman, seventh president of the French Republic (February 18 1899 – February 18, 1906) during the Third Republic.

Biography

Early years

Son of a small landowner and mayor of Marsanne (Drome). Admitted to Paris in 1862, he studied law, and while still a student he witnessed the overwhelming victory of the Republican party in Paris during the elections of 1863, during the Second Empire. He settled to practice his profession in Montélimar, where he married Marie-Louise Picard in 1869. He also inherited a small property in Grignan.

Political career

With the end of the empire in 1870, the first position he held was in the mayor's office of Montélimar in 1870, becoming a follower of Léon Gambetta. Some time later he moved to the House and later to the Senate, being one of the 363 who became famous for approving the vote of censure against the ministry of Albert de Broglie, on May 17, 1877.

In 1880 he was appointed president of the departmental council in Drome. His support for Jules Ferry's second term and his enthusiasm for France's colonial expansion gave him weight among moderate Republicans.

He entered the Senate in 1885. In 1887 he took charge of the Ministry of Public Works. In 1892 President Sadi Carnot, who was a personal friend of his, consulted him to form a government. Loubet combined the Ministry of the Interior with the position of president of the Council of Ministers of France, having to face the anarchist crimes and the Carmaux general strike, where he acted as a mediator, dictating a decision considered favorable to the strikers. He was brought down in November over the Panama scandal affair, but retained the post of Interior Minister in Alexandre Ribot's cabinet.

President of the French Republic

His reputation as a spirited orator and lucid exposition, as well as an honest man, earned him the presidency of the senate in 1896, and he was elected president of the republic in February 1899, replacing Félix Faure by 483 votes against 279 of his most serious opponent, Jules Méline.

During his mandate, the so-called Dreyfus case occurred, which produced the intervention of intellectuals such as Émile Zola, in defense of the soldier of Jewish origin. This caused tensions in the army and among politicians, reaching the point that the president was hit on the head for not being a supporter of Dreyfus. He summoned Waldeck-Rousseau to form a government and resolve the matter. Finally, he forgave him the ten-year prison sentence to which he was sentenced.

The most relevant events of Loubet's presidency were the crisis caused by the law of separation of church and state of 1905, with the previous expulsion of the French ambassador from the Vatican; the Paris Exposition of 1900; the formation of the entente between the United Kingdom and France, to which Russia would join. He also made various state visits to the kings of the United Kingdom, Portugal, Russia and Spain (in 1905) (the one to Spain, carried out in October, corresponded to that of King Alfonso XIII to France, in May-June, where he suffered an attack in Paris, when he was in the company of Loubet, although without consequences).

When his term came to an end, in January 1906, he became the first president to have served a full term without seeking a second term, retiring from public life and dying twenty-four years later.

As an anecdote, he was named Knight of the Norwegian Lion by King Oscar II.