Free-trade economist and journalist, twice Bonaparte's interior minister, who reported the electoral law of 1850

Born at Limoges in 1803 into a family without means, he became a Liberal journalist after 1830, editing Le Courrier français, and was elected deputy for Reims in 1847 as a free-trader. In 1848 he opposed limits on working hours, the national workshops and the abolition of the death penalty. Louis Napoleon made him minister of the interior, but a circular meant to sway the elections forced him out in May 1849. He was rapporteur of the electoral law of 31 May 1850. Back at the interior in April 1851 as de facto head of a compromise cabinet of Bonapartists and the Party of Order, he resigned in October rather than back the president's bid to repeal that law. After the coup he left politics; he died at Marseille in 1854.

Also known as: Léonard Joseph Léon Faucher · Leon Faucher

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