Émile Ollivier
(Marseille, 1825-Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, 1913) French politician and lawyer.From a family of republican ideas (his father protected the independentista Giuseppe Mazzini when he had to flee from Italy), he studied at the Colegio de Santa Bárbara.
Very young, he was commissioner of the Republic in Boches-du-Rhône et le Var during the revolution of February 1848; a few months later, in June, he was appointed prefect of Chaumont.
When his father was arrested after Louis Napoleon Bonaparte's coup in December 1851, he decided to dedicate himself to law, acquiring a certain fame.In 1857 he was elected Republican deputy in the Legislative Assembly, where, within the moderate "Group of Five" (with Darimon, Favre, Hénon and Picard) he promoted several reforms.Napoleon III's acceptance of some of these reforms led Ollivier closer to the emperor, convinced of his true desire to favor the most vulnerable classes.
Thus, in 1863 he became head of a political party ( Tiers Parti , 'Third Party'), and in 1864 he was rapporteur of the law on labor coalitions, scandalizing related ideological sectors.Already in 1867 Napoleon III considered the possibility of entrusting him with higher government tasks, which became effective in January 1870, when he became part of a cabinet that he was commissioned to train, and in which he held the position of minister of Justice and Cults.In this cabinet he was one of the most active members; He won the victory in the May 1870 plebiscite over the Empire.
Contrary to the war with Prussia, he ended up declaring it by following the game of the Prussian Chancellor Bismarck in the question of the election of the new Spanish king.When public opinion held him responsible after the first disasters, he was replaced by Cousin-Montauban in August and had to flee to Italy.
He did not return to France until 1873, and even then he was forbidden from all political activity and from giving any speech at the French Academy, of which he was a member.He wrote in defense of his government work Le Ministère du 2 janvier (The Ministry of January 2, 1875) and Journal de l'émpire liberal (Diary of the liberal empire, 1894-1902), an important source of approximation to his time.
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