Jean Casimir-Perier

Jean Casimir-Périer

Jean Paul Pierre Casimir-Perier (born  November 8, 1847 in Paris ; †  March 11, 1907 there ) was the fifth President of the Third French Republic from June 27, 1894 to January 16, 1895 .

Life

The son of Auguste Casimir-Perier (Minister of the Interior under Adolphe Thiers ) and grandson of Casimir Pierre Périer (Prime Minister under Louis-Philippe ) was born in Paris on November 8, 1847. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, he distinguished himself as captain of the Mobile Guard in the defense of Paris . His political activities began in 1871 as his father's head of cabinet in the Ministry of the Interior. If he had previously carried the family name Périer, in April 1874 he and his father received permission to change his name to Casimir-Perier.

In 1874 Casimir-Perier was General Councilor of the Aube department . In 1876 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies by the same department as a republican candidate . Despite his family tradition, he joined the Left Center in the Chamber of Deputies. When President Patrice de Mac-Mahon dismissed Prime Minister Jules Simon on May 16, 1877 and installed a reactionary cabinet under the leadership of Albert de Broglie , Casimir-Perier was one of the 363 MPs who signed a vote of no confidence in the new government. On December 20, 1877, under Agénor Bardoux, he became Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Public Education, Fine Arts and Culture and held this office until the Ministry's resignation on January 30, 1879.

When the law on the expulsion of the French ruling family was being discussed in 1883, Casimir-Perier resigned his parliamentary mandate because he was unable to reconcile his own republican convictions with his Orléanist family traditions. However, he was re-elected that same year and was appointed Undersecretary of State of the War Department on October 17, 1883, which he remained until the resignation of Jules Ferry's cabinet on March 30, 1885. From 1890 to 1892 he served as vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies before becoming its president on January 10, 1893. After Charles Dupuy's resignation on December 3, 1893, entrusted with the formation of a new cabinet, he became prime minister and at the same time took over the leadership of the Foreign Office. As early as May 22, 1894, however, the association of the right with the extreme left forced him to resign by demanding, contrary to the government, that the law on the formation of workers' syndicates should also apply to workers employed in the civil service. Since Dupuy succeeded him as Prime Minister, Casimir-Perier was again President of the Chamber on June 2, 1894 in his place.

After the assassination of President Marie Francois Sadi Carnot (June 25, 1894) was Casimir Perier the next June 27 in the first round of the rights and the moderate Republicans, with 451 of 853 votes cast for the fifth President of the Third French Republic selected while the opposing candidates Henri Brisson 195 votes and Charles Dupuy 97 votes. He did not accept Dupuy's resignation, which was immediately submitted. In the inaugural message that he addressed to the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies on July 3 , he announced his intention to exercise more decisive influence on the government than his predecessors had done. To everyone's surprise, however, Casimir-Perier announced his own resignation just one day after the resignation of the Dupuy cabinet on January 15, 1895. He explained this step by saying that the ministers did not involve him in their decision-making processes and that they had not been informed about political events, in particular foreign policy.

For Casimir-Perier, who afterwards primarily took care of his business, this also meant withdrawing from politics. In the appeal process of Alfred Dreyfus before the court martial in Rennes (August 7th - September 9th, 1899), Casimir-Perier's statements were contrary to those of the witness, the former Minister of War Général Auguste Mercier .

Casimir-Perier died on March 11, 1907 at the age of 59 in Paris and rests there in the Père Lachaise cemetery .

literature

• Perier, Jean Paul Pierre , in: Brockhaus' Konversations-Lexikon , 14th edition, 1892-96, vol. 12, p. 1015 f.
• Casimir-Périer, Jean Paul Pierre , in: Encyclopædia Britannica , 11th edition, 1910-11, vol. 5, p. 448.

Web links

Commons : Jean Casimir-Perier  - collection of images, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	successor
Charles Thomas Floquet Charles Dupuy	President of the French Chamber of Deputies January 10, 1893 - December 3, 1893 June 2, 1894 - June 27, 1894	Charles Dupuy Auguste Burdeau