Justin de Selves
Justin Germain Casimir de Selves (born July 19, 1848 in Toulouse , † January 13, 1934 in Paris ) was a French senior civil servant and politician in the Third Republic . In the course of his career he was, among other things, Prefect of the Seine Department , Foreign and Interior Minister and President of the French Senate .
Live and act
Early years
Justin de Selves attended the Collège in Montauban ( Département Tarn-et-Garonne ) and the Lycée in Algiers . In the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871, he initially served as a first lieutenant . After promotion to captain he was appointed to the directorate of the administration of the Ministry of War in Tours , where his uncle Charles de Freycinet was undersecretary.
After obtaining his doctorate in law , he became a lawyer in Montauban and was promoted to a Bâtonnier by his colleagues there . H. elected chairman of the bar. He was also elected to the city council of Montauban.
1880 to 1911: senior administrative officer
In 1880 he was appointed prefect for the first time for the Tarn-et-Garonne department . Subsequently, he held this office for the departments of Oise (from 1882), Meurthe-et-Moselle (from 1884) and Gironde (from 1885). In 1890 he became General Director of the French Post Office (Postes et télégraphes) and represented France at the Universal Postal Congress in Vienna in 1891 .
On April 23, 1896, the Méline government appointed him as the successor to Eugène Poubelle as prefect of the Seine département , d. H. from Paris and surroundings. In this office he remained under numerous governments for 15 years and worked with changing majorities in the Paris city council. During his tenure, he made significant contributions in numerous areas, including the development of local public transport ( metro , tram ) and the award of licenses for public electricity and water supply.
De Selves also made significant contributions in the field of cultural heritage management and public art collections. He founded the Commission du Vieux Paris and made a significant contribution to the creation of the Petit Palais art collection .
1909 to 1926: Senator and Minister
On January 3, 1909, de Selves was elected to the Senate for the Tarn-et-Garonne department . As a senator, he continued to be prefect of the Seine department. In 1910 he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts .
On June 27, 1911, he became Foreign Minister in the government of Joseph Caillaux . In favor of this office he had given up that of the prefect. The second Morocco crisis broke out immediately after he took office . In the course of negotiations with the German Reich to resolve them, Cailloux began talks with the German side, of which he did not inform de Selves. When the latter found out about it and complained to President Armand Fallières and Georges Clemenceau about it, Clemenceau caused a scandal in the Senate, leading to de Selves' resignation on January 9, 1912 and ultimately, two days later, the overthrow of the government Caillaux led.
From his resignation as Foreign Minister in 1912 to 1924, de Selves was again Senator. At times he was in front of the Chamber's Foreign Affairs Commission, especially in 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles was ratified .
On March 29, 1924 he became Minister of the Interior in the Poincaré II cabinet and remained in office in the extremely short-lived transitional government of Poincaré's successor, Frédéric François-Marsal, from June 9 to 13, 1924.
On June 19 of the same year he was elected President of the Senate . In this function, he headed the chamber until he failed in the second ballot against Roger Delthil in the Senate elections at the beginning of January 1927 and was thus eliminated from parliament.
literature
- Jean Jolly: Dictionnaire des Parlementaires français . 1960-1977.
Web links
- Literature by and about Justin de Selves in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Anciens sénateurs IIIème République: de SELVES Justin. French Senate , November 20, 2015, accessed on December 23, 2015 (French, with biographical information from Jolly (1960/1977), see “Literature” section above).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Selves, Justin de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Selves, Justin Germain Casimir de (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French senior official and politician in the Third Republic |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 19, 1848 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Toulouse , France |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 13, 1934 |
| Place of death | Paris , France |