Léon Faucher | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Prime Minister of France | |
| In office 10 April 1851 – 26 October 1851 | |
| Preceded by | Alphonse Henri, comte d'Hautpoul |
| Succeeded by | Personal rule ofNapoleon III No Prime Minister until 1869, withÉmile Ollivier |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 8 September 1803 |
| Died | 14 December 1854(1854-12-14) (aged 51) |
| Party | Independent |
Léonard Joseph Léon Faucher (French:[leɔ̃foʃe]; 8 September 1803 – 14 December 1854) was a French politician and economist.
Faucher was born atLimoges, Haute-Vienne. When he was nine years old the family moved toToulouse, where the boy was sent to school. His parents were separated in 1816, and Léon Faucher, who resisted his father's attempts to put him to a trade, helped to support himself and his mother during the rest of his school career by designing embroidery and needlework. As a private tutor in Paris he continued his studies in the direction ofarchaeology and history, but with therevolution of 1830 he was drawn into active political journalism on the Liberal side. He was on the staff of theTemps from 1830 to 1833, when he became editor of theConstitutionnel for a short time. A Sunday journal of his own,Le Bien public, proved a disastrous financial failure; and his political independence having caused his retirement from theConstitutionnel, he joined in 1834Le Courrier français, of which he was editor from 1839 until 1842, when the paper changed hands.[1]
Faucher was an early member of theSociété d'économie politique organized in 1842 byPellegrino Rossi.[2] He belonged in policy to the dynastic Left, and consistently preached moderation to the more ardent Liberals. On resigning his connection with theCourrier français he gave his attention chiefly to many economic questions. He advocated a customs union between the Latin countries to counterbalance the GermanZollverein, and in view of the impracticability of such a measure narrowed his proposal in 1842 to a customs union between France andBelgium.He helped to organize theBordeaux association for free-trade propaganda, and it was as an advocate of free trade that he was elected in 1847 to the chamber of deputies forReims.[1]
After therevolution of 1848 he entered the Constituent Assembly for the department ofMarne, where he opposed many Republican measures – the limitation of the hours of labour, the creation of the national relief works in Paris, the abolition of the death penalty and others. Under the presidency ofLouis Napoleon he became minister of public works, and then minister of the interior, but his action in seeking to influence the coming elections by a circular letter addressed to the prefects was censured by the Constituent Assembly, and he was compelled to resign office on 14 May 1849. In 1851 he was again minister of the interior until Napoleon declared his intention of resorting to universal suffrage. After the coup d'état of December he refused a seat in the consultative commission instituted by Napoleon. He had been elected a member of theAcademy of Moral and Political Science in 1849, and his retirement from politics permitted a return to his writings on economics. He had been toItaly in search of health in 1854, and was returning to Paris on business when he was seized bytyphoid atMarseille, where he died.[1]
In 1843 Faucher visited England to study the English social system, publishing the results of his investigations in a noted series ofEtudes sur l'Angleterre (2 vols., 1845), published originally in theRevue des deux mondes.[1]
His miscellaneous writings were collected (2 vols., 1856) asMélanges d'economie politique et de finance, and his speeches in the legislature are printed in vol. ii. ofLéon Faucher, biographie et correspondance (2 vols., 2nd ed., Paris, 1875).[1]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Faucher, Léonard Joseph".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 204.| Preceded by | Prime Minister of France 1849–1851 | Succeeded by Émile Ollivier (1870*) |
* Faucher was head of France's government at the end of theSecond Republic in 1851. There were no Prime Ministers until the end of theSecond Empire, and as a result, the next Prime Minister was named in 1869.
First cabinet of Odilon Barrot (20 December 1848 to 2 June 1849) | ||
|---|---|---|
Under the Presidency ofLouis Napoleon | ||
| President of the Council, Minister of Justice | ||
| Interior | ||
| Foreign Affairs: | ||
| Finance | ||
| Agriculture and Commerce | ||
| Public Works | ||
| War | ||
| Navy and Colonies | ||
| Public Education and Religious Worship | ||
Cabinet of Léon Faucher (10 April - 26 October 1851) | ||
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Under the Presidency ofLouis Napoleon | ||
| Interior |  | |
| Justice | ||
| Foreign Affairs | ||
| Defense | ||
| Navy and Colonies | ||
| Public Works | ||
| Education and Religious Affairs | ||
| Agriculture and Commerce | ||
| Finance | ||
