PRESIDENT OF FRANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8198, 26 January 1906, Page 4

PRESIDENT OF FRANCE.

The French Republic has just elected a President for the term of seven years. M. Loubet declined to accept nomination for another term. He was sixtyseven years of age upon the last day of 1905, and he protested that another term of office would put him too far over the Biblical limit of three score years aud ten, which is supposed to be man's allotted sphere of life. The cablegrams have told us that M. Fallieres has been elected in his stead. The one qualification necessary for the highest office in France is that its holde l ' must be a Frenchman. He need be neither a Deputy nor a Senator, and, although he is customarily a man of known political opinions, he need not be a politician at all. M. Loubet was President of the Senate when the National Assembly elected him to be President of the Republic in 18'JS, but although he had tilled high ollicc and had been actively engaged in politics for years, he was comparatively little known to the " man in the street." The Assembly has followed this precedent in electing M. Fallieres, who was also President of the Senate when promoted to the higher office. He owes his election to a variety of circumstances. He is known to be sound politically, he is not a person of too ambitious tendencies, and he is distinctly decorative. His return, it was also held, would be satisfactory because it would not be objectionable to the reactionary party. His wife is extremely popular everywhere, and this, of course, is an important qualification in the campaign for the Presidency. M Douiner, who was "runner up" in the contest, is the former Governor of IndoChina and President of the French Ciiamber. He has held both the portfolios of Finance and Interior in the French Cabinet, and is described as a man of charming personality. But, as a Radical Republican of clearly defined political opinions, and an active and pushing partisan, he lacked the necessary political neutrality which has helped less capable men to the Presidency.