Émile Loubet | |
---|---|
President of the French Republic | |
In office 18 February 1899 – 18 February 1906 |
|
Prime Minister |
Charles Dupuy Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau Émile Combes Maurice Rouvier |
Preceded by | Félix Faure |
Succeeded by | Armand Fallières |
Prime Minister of France | |
In office 27 February 1892 – 6 December 1892 |
|
President | Marie François Sadi Carnot |
Preceded by | Charles de Freycinet |
Succeeded by | Alexandre Ribot |
Personal details | |
Born | 31 December 1838 Marsanne, France |
Died | 20 December 1929 (aged 90) Montélimar, France |
Nationality | French |
Political party | Democratic Republican Alliance |
Spouse(s) | Marie-Louise Picard (m. 1869–1925); her death |
Émile François Loubet (French: [emil lubɛ]; 31 December 1838 – 20 December 1929) was the 45th Prime Minister of France and 8th President of France.
Trained in law, he became mayor of Montélimar, where he was noted as a forceful orator. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1876 and the Senate in 1885. He was appointed as a Republican minister under Carnot and Ribot. He was briefly Prime Minister of France in 1892. As President (1899–1906), his term of office saw the successful Paris Exhibition of 1900, and the forging of the Entente with Great Britain, resolving their sharp differences over the Boer War and the Dreyfus Affair.
Loubet was born on 31 December 1838, the son of a peasant proprietor and mayor of Marsanne (Drôme). Admitted to the Parisian bar in 1862, he took his doctorate in law the next year. He was still a student when he witnessed the sweeping triumph of the Republican party in Paris at the general election in 1863, during the Second French Empire. He settled down to the exercise of his profession in Montélimar, where in 1869 he married Marie-Louise Picard. He also inherited a small estate at Grignan.
At the crisis of 1870, which brought about the Empire's end, he became mayor of Montélimar, and thenceforward was a steady supporter of Léon Gambetta. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1876 by Montélimar, he was one of the famous 363 who on 16 May 1877 (Seize Mai) passed the vote of no confidence in the ministry of the duc de Broglie.