Raymond Poincaré

France state institutions Liberalism and republicanism France France 1860–1934 ○ Natural causes

President during the First World War and centre-right premier who ordered the occupation of the Ruhr

Born in Bar-le-Duc in 1860, he was a lawyer and a cousin of the mathematician Henri Poincaré. Elected deputy for the Meuse in 1887, he served as minister of education and of finance in the cabinets of Dupuy and Ribot, and in 1902 he co-founded the Democratic Republican Alliance, the centre-right party of Gambetta's Opportunist heirs. He became president of the council in January 1912, strengthening the alliance with Russia against Germany. As president from 1913 to 1920 he saw France through the July Crisis of 1914 and the First World War. Returning as prime minister in 1922, he ordered the occupation of the Ruhr on 11 January 1923 to extract reparations, but lost the 1924 election to the Cartel des Gauches. In his third premiership, from 1926 to 1929, he stabilised the franc; he died in Paris in 1934.

Also known as: Raymond Nicolas Landry Poincaré

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