OBITUARY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 149, 26 June 1931, Page 7

OBITUARY

M. CLEMENT FALLIERES. LONDON, June 24. The death has occurred of M. Clement Fallicres, who was elected President of France in 1906, in succession to Al. Loubet. M. dement Armand Fallicres was born at Muzin, Lot et Garonne, in November, 1841. Ho settled as an advocate at Nerac, of which he later became Mayor. After he had been relieved of this office for political reasons his townsmen in 1876 sent him to the Chamber, where he joined the Republican Left. In 1880 he was appointed Under-Secretary for the Interior in the Jules Ferry Cabinet, and later took the portfolios of Education, the Interior and Justice. In July, 1890, he forsook the Chamber for the Senate, and when Loubet was elected President, AL Fallicres became President of the Senate and of the Supreme Court. In January, 1906, he succeeded AL. Loubet as President of the Republic, securing 449 votes against 371 for Doumer. The Left greeted his choice with delight. When AL Fallicres took over the Elysee Palace after his election his first act was to effect a reduction in the military and naval staff attached to the Presidency. M. Loubet had a staff of 15 or 20 officers of high rank attached to his person; Al. Fallicres promptly reduced the number to three, the high est in rank being a colonel. He likewise dismissed the 14 ornamental officials attached to the “Protocol/’ or Etiquette Department, who filled the ante-rooms of the palace. “It is out of place for the chief magistrate of a democratic Republic to be surrounded with so much ceremony/’ was his remark on that occasion. During his term of office (1906-13) he supported the Errtento policy by visits to England and Russia, which was returned by the monarchs. Another notable feature of this period was the dispute over Alorocco and the Agadir incident in 1911, which ended in the cession of the French Congo to Germany.