Vincent Auriol
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- For other meanings, see also the disambiguation page Auriol
| Vincent Auriol | |
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| In office January 16, 1947 – January 16, 1954 |
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| Preceded by | Léon Blum |
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| Succeeded by | René Coty |
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| Born | August 27, 1884 Revel, Haute-Garonne |
| Died | January 1, 1966 Muret, Haute-Garonne |
| Political party | SFIO |
| Spouse | Michelle Aucouturier |
Jules-Vincent Auriol (August 27, 1884 - January 1, 1966) was a French politician who served as the first President of the Fourth Republic from 1947 to 1954.
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[edit] Early life and politics
Auriol was born in Revel, Haute-Garonne, the son of a butcher. He earned a law degree at the Collège de Revel in 1904 and began his career as a lawyer in Toulouse. A committed socialist, Auriol co-founded the newspaper Le Midi Socialiste in 1908; he was head of the Association of Journalists in Toulouse at this time.
In 1914, Auriol entered the Chamber of Deputies as a Socialist Deputy for Muret, a position he retained until 1940. He also served as Mayor of Muret from 1925 to 1946, and as a member of the Conseil Général of Haute-Garonne from 1928 to 1946. After the breakup of the Parti Socialiste Unifé in 1920, Auriol became a founding member of the socialist SFIO party, opposed to the revolutionary rhetoric of the socialist party's left-wing (the core group of the French Communist Party, PCF).
Auriol became the party's leading spokesman on financial issues. He chaired the Finance Committee in the Chamber of Deputies from 1924-1926. His first cabinet post was as Minister of Finance under Léon Blum, in which Auriol controversially devalued the French franc 30% against the United States dollar, leading to capital flight and greater economic unease. This and Blum's proposals for greater regulatory restrictions on industry led to Blum's resignation as Premier; in the next government, led by Camille Chautemps, Auriol was made Minister of Justice, then Minister of Coordination of Services of the Presidency of the Council in Blum's short-lived government in 1938. Édouard Daladier's conservative-Radical government formed on April 10, 1938 returned Auriol to the Chamber of Deputies.
Auriol voted against the extraordinary powers given to Prime Minister Philippe Pétain on July 10, 1940 that brought about the Nazi-backed Vichy government. As a result, he was placed under house arrest until he escaped to the French Resistance in October 1942, and fought with the resistance for a year. Auriol fled to London in October of 1943. He represented the Socialists at the Free French Consultative Assembly (organized by Charles de Gaulle in Algiers later that year). In July 1944, he represented France at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. He was a Minister of State in de Gaulle's second provisional government.
[edit] Postwar life and presidency
After World War II, Auriol served as Minister of State in de Gaulle's provisional government. He was also a member of the Constituent Assemblies which drafted the constitution of the short-lived French Fourth Republic, and was President of the assemblies. He lobbied for a "third force" between Communism and Gaullism. Auriol also led the French delegation to the United Nations and was France's first representative on the United Nations Security Council in 1946. He served as a Deputy for Haute-Garonne in the National Assembly from 1946 until January 16, 1947, when the National Assembly elected him as the first President of the Fourth Republic. Auriol was elected by a wide margin, receiving 452 votes against the 242 for the People's Republican Movement (MRP) candidate, Auguste Champetier de Ribes.
As president, Auriol pursued a relatively weak presidency as there had been under the Third Republic, and attempted to reconcile political factions within France and warm relations between France and its allies. He was criticized for France's ailing economy and political turmoil in the postwar period, and the war in Indochina. A series of debilitating strikes were waged across France in 1947, initiated by the Confédération Générale du Travail. The strikes escalated into violence in November of that year, leading, on November 28, to the government deploying 80,000 French Army reservists to face the "insurrection". The PCF, who often supported the strikes, were expelled from the legislature in early December. The strikes ended on December 10, but more would come in 1948, and again in 1953 in response to the Joseph Laniel government's austerity program.
Apart from the inconclusive war in Indochina, France's colonial empire decayed under Auriol's presidency. Clashes in Morocco, Madagascar, Algeria, and Tunisia became more frequent; an Algerian independence movement, the Front de Libération Nationale, was founded in 1951, in 1953 the French overthrew Mohammed V, the Sultan of Morocco, after he demanded greater autonomy. France also waged a brutal war of repression in Madagascar, and imprisoned Tunisian independence leader Habib Bourguiba in 1952.
When Auriol's term as president expired, he did not run for a second, and was succeeded by René Coty as President of France on January 16, 1954. Auriol commented on leaving office: "The work was killing me; they called me out of bed at all hours of the night to receive resignations of prime ministers"[1]. (There were eighteen different governments during his seven years as President.)
After his presidency, Auriol assumed the role of elder statesman, and wrote articles on political topics. Auriol became a member of the Constitutional Council of France in 1958 at the establishment of the French Fifth Republic; he resigned from the SFIO in the same year. He unsuccessfully lobbied against the constitution in the 1958 national referendum, and resigned from his position on the Constitutional Council in 1960 to protest the growing power of Charles de Gaulle's presidency. In 1965, he endorsed François Mitterrand for the Presidency. Auriol died at Muret, Haute-Garonne.
[edit] External links
- World at war biography
- (French) Timeline of Auriol's life
- (French) Timeline of the Auriol government
[edit] See also
| Preceded by Marcel Régnier |
Minister of Finance 1936–1937 |
Succeeded by Georges Bonnet |
| Preceded by Marc Rucart |
Minister of Justice 1937–1938 |
Succeeded by César Campinchi |
| Preceded by – |
Minister of Coordination of Services of the Presidency of the Council 1938 |
Succeeded by – |
| Preceded by Léon Blum (Chairman of the Provisional Government) |
President of France 1947–1954 |
Succeeded by René Coty |
| Preceded by Georges Bidault and Ramon Iglesias i Navarri |
Co-Prince of Andorra 1947-1954 with Ramon Iglesias i Navarri |
Succeeded by René Coty and Ramon Iglesias i Navarri |
| Preceded by Félix Gouin |
President of the National Assembly 1946 |
Succeeded by Edouard Herriot |
