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POINCARÉ, RAYMOND
student, he studied law at the Sorbonne and in 1880 became one of France’s youngest attorneys. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1887, displaying considerable grasp of economic and budgetary matters. In 1893 he joined the government as minister of education and three years later accepted the portfolio of minister of finance. By this time Poincaré had acquired the reputation of a thoroughly honest politician beset by a cold and aloof personality. In 1903 he successfully ran for a seat in the senate and became de facto leader of the bloc national, a coalition of conservative interests. His reputation for efficiency and reliability resulted in his appointment as prime minister in 1912. In this capacity he flaunted his nationalist credentials by shoring up France’s defenses through multilateral treaties with Russia and Great Britain, the famous Triple Entente. He also lent his weight to passage of an important military bill that increased military service from two years to three. In January 1913 Poincaré confounded political observers by giving up his premiership to run for the presidency, an office of largely ceremonial functions. Poincaré, as usual, had other ideas, and he was intent upon strengthening his office to better influence foreign policy and the selection of new prime ministers. Poincaré was successfully elected president and, following the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, he used it as a symbol of national unity. He promulgated plans for formation of a union sacrée (sacred union), which encompassed political factions from the left, right, and center. In addition to his political responsibilities, Poincaré tirelessly promoted morale among the troops and visited them in the field, the camps, and the trenches. The war effort badly stumbled in 1917 when nearly half the army mutinied and Poincaré displayed genuine statesmanship by appointing his hated arch-adversary GEORGES CLEMENCEAU as prime minister. Together they restored military morale and steeled the nation for further sacrifices that led to victory in November 1918. Thereafter Poincaré vociferously supported a hard line toward a defeated Germany, demanding reparations and seeking to detach the Rhineland as an autonomous state. In this he was thwarted by Clemenceau and the British, who proved far less vindictive toward the vanquished. When Poincaré’s term expired in January 1920 he returned to the senate. He was the only senior government official to continuously hold office throughout the war years.
Postwar economic difficulties resulted in Poincaré replacing ARISTIDE BRIAND as prime minister in January 1922 and also serving as minister of foreign affairs. Germany’s economy was also experiencing difficulties and it failed to make reparation payments as scheduled. An angry Poincaré conferred with British and German dignitaries in London and Paris, but they reached an impasse. Determined to achieve satisfaction, he then unilaterally ordered French troops to occupy the industrialized Ruhr River valley until payments resumed. The cash-strapped Germans simply resorted to passive resistance while the mounting costs of occupation also strained the French economy. But by 1924, the British and American governments hammered out the Dawes Plan, signed by Poincaré and German chancellor GUSTAV STRESEMANN, which reduced reparations to more realistic levels. However, when Poincaré imposed new and unpopular taxes to help subsidize the occupation, the Radical and Socialist Cartel of the Left defeated the conservatives, and Poincaré resigned. By 1926 France was headed for an economic crisis and Poincaré was recalled as prime minister to head a National Union government. He levied new taxes, sponsored a constitutional amendment to fund bond payments, balanced the budget, and returned France to the international gold standard. This caused the declining French franc to stabilize and, against all expectations, the economy rebounded and enjoyed a period of prosperity over the next two years. When the Radicals and Socialists withdrew their support from the government in November 1928, Poincaré cobbled together a new coalition and remained in office. Bad health finally required him to withdraw in July 1929, and he turned to writing his voluminous memoirs. Poincaré died in Paris on October 15, 1934, a towering figure of the French Third Republic (1870–1940) and its most influential president. And, in a period dominated by leftists, he was France’s most conspicuous and successful conservative politician. Further Reading Dutton, Paul V. Origins of the French Welfare State, 1914–1947. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Fortescue, William. The Third Republic in France, 1870–1940. New York: Routledge, 2000. Keiger, J. F. V. Raymond Poincaré. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.