Clemenceau, Georges

(1841-1929)

   political figure

   Born in the Vendée at Mouilleron-en-Pareds, Georges Clemenceau was trained as a physician but took up a political career in 1870, just after the fall of the second empire. He became mayor of the 18th arrondissement (Montmartre) of paris and also a Radical deputy to the National Assembly in 1871. By 1876, he was the leader of the Left in the assembly, where, after his opposition to the rightist policies of edme mac-mahon, he contributed also to the fall of a number of ministers (léon gambetta, 1882; jules ferry, 1885), earning him the title of "tombeur de ministeries" ("feller of ministries") and later, "Tigre" (Tiger). After having supported the candidacy of georges boulanger for minister of war, Clemenceau soon denounced his attempts at a monarchist revival. But being compromised himself in the panama affair, and accused of being an agent of Great Britain, Clemenceau was defeated in the election of 1893. His support of Captain alfred dreyfus (émile zola's J'Accuse was published in Clemenceau's newspaper L'Aurore [1898]) brought him back to politics. A senator in 1902, he was named president of the Council and minister of the interior in 1906. Clemenceau pursued a policy of separation of church and state but was hostile to some social movements, and he used military force to break up a miner's strike in Pas-de-Calais (1909), earning him the enmity of the Socialists. Chosen premier in that year, his ministry soon fell and he again became a senator. Returning to the opposition, he founded the newspaper L'Homme libre (1913), in which he denounced the German threat and the inefficiency of the French military. Suppressed at the beginning of World War I, it soon reappeared under the name L'Homme enchaîné. In 1917 during World War I, Clemenceau was called by Raymond poincaré to lead the government and restore the national confidence with a struggle against defeatism. Despite opposition, he made General Ferdinand foch a marshal of France and rallied the country for an all-out victory effort. After the war, Clemenceau presided over the Paris Peace Conference and negotiated the treaty of Versailles (1919). Known as "le Père la Victoire," Clemenceau was defeated in the presidential election of 1920 because of his hostility to factions on both sides of parliament. He spent much of the remainder of his life traveling (in particular in the United States) and writing. Clemenceau was elected to the académie FRANÇAISE in 1918.