Maurice Rouvier

Maurice Rouvier (French pronunciation: ​[moʁis ʁuvje]; 17 April 1842 – 7 June 1911) was a French statesman of the "Opportunist" faction. He is best known for his financial policies and his unpopular policies designed to avoid a rupture with Germany.

He was born in Aix-en-Provence, and spent his early career in business at Marseille. He supported Léon Gambetta's candidature there in 1867, and in 1870 he founded an anti-imperial journal, L'Egalité. He also belonged to the same masonic lodge as Gambetta, "La Réforme" in Marseille. Becoming secretary general of the prefecture of Bouches-du-Rhône in. 1870-71, he refused the office of prefect. In July 1871 he was returned to the National Assembly for Marseille at a by-election, and voted steadily with the Republican party. He became a recognized authority on finance, and repeatedly served on the Budget Commission as reporter or president.

At the general elections of 1881 after the fall of the Jules Ferry cabinet he was returned to the chamber on a programme which included the separation of Church and State, a policy of decentralization, and the imposition of an income-tax. He then joined Gambetta's cabinet as minister of commerce and the colonies, and in the 1883-85 cabinet of Jules Ferry he held the same office. He became premier and minister of finance on 31 May 1887, with the support of the moderate republican groups, the Radicals holding aloof in support of General Boulanger, who began a violent agitation against the government.

Then came the scandal of the decorations in which President Grévy's son-in-law Daniel Wilson figured, and the Rouvier cabinet fell in its attempt to screen the president. Rouvier's opposition in his capacity of president of the Budget Commission was one of the causes of the defeat of Charles Floquet's cabinet in February 1889. In the new Tirard ministry formed to combat the Boulangist agitation, he was minister of finance. He kept the same post in the Freycinet, Loubet and Ribot cabinets of 1890-93. Accusations that he accepted bribes from Cornelius Herz and the baron de Reinach compelled his resignation from the Ribot cabinet during the Panama scandals in December 1892. He became a successful banker and was known for his thorough familiarity with financial and budgetary issues.

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