Gaston Doumergue

Pierre Paul Henri Gaston Doumergue ( born August 1, 1863 in Aigues -Vives, Gard, † June 18, 1937 ) was a French politician and president of the Third Republic.

First, radical socialist, to Doumergue developed in the course of his life to the Conservatives. He was short from 1913 to 1914 and Prime Minister from 1924 to 1931 President of the Republic. In 1934 he was again prime minister of a conservative cabinet of national unity.

Early career

Gaston Doumergue, born in 1863 in southern France, the son of an old Protestant family of wine studied law and then worked as a lawyer. He then worked as an administrative officer in Indochina and Algeria.

In 1893 he was first elected to the French National Assembly. He had many friends because of his wittiness, tolerance and aversion to any doctrinaire. From 1902 he was represented in almost every cabinet as a minister before he became prime minister for the first time from 1913 to 1914.

1917 Doumergue received the appointment as Colonial Secretary. As such, he traveled on February 12, 1917 Petrograd and wrote the most spectacular chapter in the history of the French war aims without the knowledge of the Entente Partners UK. The offer Doumergues to Russia for free fixing its western border was the attempt to prevent a separate peace with the Allies that the German Reich. On February 14, 1917 Russia secured its part, France support for its claims to. France was not only Alsace - Lorraine, but an area in the scope of the former Duchy of Lorraine granted with the Saar Basin, not annexed the left bank of the Rhine " to an autonomous and neutral polity " form under French protection, which should be occupied until all conditions of peace were met.

Later Doumergue joined by the National Assembly in the Senate, where he was president from 1923 to 1924. This high positions proved the following year for his presidential candidacy as advantageous as his opponent Paul Painlevé, the candidate of the left-wing parties in the National Assembly had only a slight majority.

Presidency 1924-1931

Because of its moderate, almost conservative attitude he scored a majority of 515 to 309 votes in the election on 13 June 1924, was therefore selected as the first Protestant President of the French Republic. Due to the majorities in the National Assembly, however, formed in the first two years of his presidency, the politician Édouard Herriot links, Paul Painlevé and Aristide Briand governments. Only in 1926 he was able to appoint Raymond Poincaré to form a government. This it was possible to move the exposed economy back into balance. Just as in his time as a deputy Doumergue was very popular as a president. However, However, he declined to run again and retired after the end of his presidency on July 13, 1931 back to southern France.

After the riot on 6 February 1934, the former president made ​​as Prime Minister once again a government of national unity. However, in November 1934, he resigned at the age of 71 years by that office, because the co-ruling Radical Socialists disagreed with a project on the dissolution of the National Assembly and the change of the state budget.

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