Jules Ferry

Republican beginnings

Jules Ferry is the son of Charles-Edouard Ferry, lawyer, and of Adele Jamelot. Initially raises with the college of Saint-Dié until 1846, then with the imperial college of Strasbourg (currently college Fustel de Coulanges), it is then student with the Faculty of Law of Paris. He becomes considered lawyer, impassioned by the policy. He is quickly specialized in the legal defense of the republicans. He collaborates regularly in the following newspapers: the Press , Mail of Paris , Time .

Active opponent with the Second Empire, it knows notoriety by publishing in 1868 an accusing booklet against the prefect of the the Seine “ the fantastic accounts of Haussmann ”. He is elected republican Député of the 6th district of Paris in May 1869.

Politician considered as one of the founding fathers of the republican identity in France.

The republican course

The September 4th 1870, he becomes member of the government of National defense. Mayor of Paris of the November 16th 1870 with the March 18th 1871, it had the responsibility of ensure the supply of the capital besieged by the Prussian army. The food restrictions that had to be imposed are worth him the nickname of “Ferry-Famine”. During the insurrection of the Common of Paris, he flees of the city as of the first day and is one of the partisans anticommunards.

With the elections of the February 8th 1871, it is made elect representing of the Vosges to the National Assembly and will be re-elected appointed in 1876, seat which it will preserve until 1889.

It is named by Adolphe Thiers ambassador in Athens (1872-1873). Of return, it becomes one of the chiefs of the republican opposition until the election of Jules Grévy to the presidency.

The Freemason

July 8th, 1875, the freemasons give a great solemnity to its reception by the Grand the East of France (cabin “Lenient friendship”). He is received there at the same time as Littré and than Gregoire Wyrouboff. A great publicity is made with the speech that Littré pronounces on this occasion, and presses it in gives a broad echo. Thereafter, Ferry will belong to the Cabin “Alsace-Lorraine”

The defender of the public school

Named Minister for the State education of the February 4th 1879 with the September 23rd 1880 in the cabinet Waddington, it attaches his name to the school laws. Its first measurements are:

collation of the university degrees withdrawn with the private education (3/12/1880)
dispersion of the religious congregations not - authorized (3/29/1880)

President of the Council of the September 23rd 1880 with the November 10th 1881, it continues the installation of the laws on teaching:

exemption from payment of primary school education (6/16/1881)
extension to the young girls of the benefit of the secondary education of State (12/21/1881)

Again Minister for the Instruction from January 31st to July 29th, 1882 (Ministry Freycinet), it continues his school work:

relative law with the obligation and the secularity of teaching (3/28/1882). This law is an obvious result of that bearing on compulsory education. It should be noted that it is an obligation of instruction and not of schooling, art 4 indicating that the instruction can be given in the establishments of instruction, the public schools or free or in the families.
creation of a Teacher training school female in Sevres and of a aggregation female August 9th, 1879

; Extract of a letter to the teachers

“Mister the Teacher,

The school year which has just opened will be the second year of application of the law of March 28th, 1882. I do not want to let it start without you to personally send some recommendations which undoubtedly will not appear superfluous to you, after the first experiment which you have just made of the new mode. Various obligations that it imposes to you, that undoubtedly which holds you more in the middle, that which brings to you the heaviest extra work of work and concern, it is the mission which is entrusted to you to give to your pupils moral education and the civics: you will know liking to meet to me your needs while trying to fix well the character and the object of this new teaching; and, for better succeeding there, you will allow me to be put one moment at your place, in order to show you, for examples borrowed from the detail even of your functions, how you will be able to fill, in this respect, all your duty, and only your duty.

The law of March 28th is characterized by two provisions which are complementary without being contradicted: on the one hand, it puts apart from the obligatory program the teaching of any particular dogma; in addition, it places at the first rank moral and civic teaching there. The religious instruction belongs to the families and to the church, the moral instruction at the school. The legislator thus did not intend to make a purely negative work. Undoubtedly it had the first aim of separating the school from the church, to ensure the freedom of conscience and the Masters and the pupils, to finally distinguish two fields confused too a long time: that of the beliefs, which are personal, free and variable, and that of knowledge, which is common and essential to all, of the consent of all. But there is another thing in the law of March 28th: she affirms the will to found an state education on our premises, and to base it on notions of the duty and right which the legislator does not hesitate to register with the number of the first truths that no one cannot be unaware of. For this capital part of education, it is on you, Sir, that the public authorities counted. By exempting religious teaching to you, one did not think of discharging to you from moral teaching: it had been to remove you what makes the dignity of your profession. On the contrary, it appeared very natural that the teacher, at the same time as it learns how to the children to read and write, their sign also these elementary rules of the moral life which are less universally accepted that those of the language or calculation. ”

The partisan of the colonial expansion

In parallel, Jules Ferry shows an even dedicated active partisan of the French colonial expansion: Tunisia of which it obtains protectorate the May 12th 1881 by the Traité of Bardo, Madagascar, it launches the explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza to the conquest of the Congo, Tonkin. This last file will be fatal for him at the time of its second started presidency of the Council the February 21st 1883. It had reserved the wallet of the Foreign affairs besides. The conservatives, like Adolphe Thiers, are opposed to the colonization, which they show to divert out of the territory the investments, while the progressists are favorable for idealistic questions there. But the Republican left of Georges Clémenceau is also opposite there because the adventures colonialists divert the attention of the lost provinces of Alsace and of Lorraine. The positions will be reversed diametrically into three or four generations.

Having obtained of a vote of the Room the appropriations necessary to the conquest of Tonkin, it causes an extension of the conflict to China. Advertisement of the evacuation of Lạng Sơn, which will be worth the nickname of " to him; Ferry-Tonkin" , starts a violent parliamentary opposition and causes its fall the March 30th 1885. He then knows a wave of unpopularity in France.

Extract of the debates of the 28 and of July 30th, 1885

Jules Ferry makes a speech whose Charles-Andre Julien could say that it was " the first proclamation imperialist which was carried to the Platform. "

; The topic of Ferry: “There is a second point, a second order of ideas that I must also approach (...): it is the humane and civilizing side of the question. (...) Sirs, it is necessary to speak higher and more truth! It should be said openly that indeed, the higher races have a right with respect to the races lower… on several benches than the extreme-left. I repeat that there is for the higher races a right, because there is a duty for them. They have the duty to civilize the lower races. (...)”

; The answer of Georges Clémenceau, on July 30th, 1885: “Here, in proper terms, the thesis of Mr. Ferry and one sees the French government exerting his right on the races lower while going guerroyer against them and converting them of force than the benefits of civilization. Higher races! Lower races! It is soon known as. For my part, I in reductions singularly since I saw German scientists showing scientifically that France was to be overcome in the Franco-German war, because the French is of a race lower than the German. Since this time, I acknowledge it, I look there with twice before being turned over towards a man and a civilization and pronouncing: man or lower civilization! (...)

It is the genius of the French race which to have generalized the theory of the right and justice, to have understood that the problem of civilization was to eliminate violence from the reports/ratios of the men between them in the same company and to tend to eliminate violence, for a future which we do not know, of the reports/ratios of the nations between them. (...) Look at the history of the conquest of these people which you will see there known as barbarians and you violence, all the unchained crimes, oppression, blood running with floods, the weak one oppressed, tyrannized by the winner! Here is history of your civilization! (...) How much atrocious, appalling crimes were committed in the name of justice and of civilization. I do not say anything the defects that European brings with him: alcohol, opium that it spreads, which it imposes if it likes it. And it is a similar system which you try to justify in France in the fatherland of the human rights!

I do not understand that we were not unanimous to raise us here of only one jump to protest violently against your words. Not, there is no right of the nations known as higher against the lower nations. It there with the struggle for the life which is a fatal need, that as we rise in civilization we must contain within the limits of justice and the right. But let us not try to cover the violence of the hypocritical name of civilization. Let us not speak about right, to have. The conquest that you recommend, it is the pure and simple abuse force which the man gives scientific civilization on rudimentary civilizations to adapt, to torture it, to extract from it all the force which is in him with the profit of the alleged civilizing one. It is not the right, it is the negation. To speak on this subject about civilization, it is to join to violence hypocrisy. ”

The point of view of Clemenceau is clean for him at that time, although Hugo expressed a nearby concern; if the opinions differ as for colonization for economic reasons (colonization bring back does or not money? Is it necessary to finance wars for territories African - or Asian? Isn't it worth to better invest in France instead of wasting our money among people not having done anything for us when they were rich and us poor?), the debate on the superiority of the civilization of the Lights or on the human rights, will take place only later, after the Great War mainly. In 1885, the genetics does not exist yet, the statistics are embryonic and the concept of race remains fuzzy. The scientists note simply that the European populations reached a still unknown degree of development of the others. Clemenceau, perspicacious, understood that these theories serve as a pretext for justify a policy favourable with the plundering which thus quickly will be contrary with the human rights.

Few politicians of the time, whatever their edge, call in question the idea of European superiority (America while being seen only like one outgrowth). The line, illustrated by Thiers, claims that one holds the money saved by the French with work of development of France. The left is worried more human questions like the Médecine, the Vaccination, the Hygiène, the education, the fight against the Féodalité S in place and the Superstitions, but critical it also Jules Ferry about the economic points.

The large intellectuals of the time were favorable to colonization, allowing (according to them) to advance the people " in retard". Victor Hugo defends the policy of Jules Ferry in the name of the human rights; that does not have anything a paradox if it is supposed that the white is " more in avance" : it has then a duty to civilize, to bring the evolution to the less developed people, like formerly the Romans with Gallic, expensive example with Ferry). Hugo insists on the fact that colonization should be only temporary , and that France must know to be erased then as a tutor who fulfilled his role.

The letters of the colonists of Indo-China réglièrement give for example a report on a very great brutality of the autochtones families towards their servants. It is difficult to know which was the share of truth and the share of idealization of the French intervention in these accounts.

Here finally the " part; économique" harangue referred to above. The economic character (true source of the debate), occupies the extreme majority of the remarks of Jules Ferry, on July 28th, 1885:

; The economic role of colonization according to Ferry: “Competition, the law of supply and demand, the freedom of the exchanges, the influence of the speculations, all that radiates in a circle which extends until the ends from the world. It is an extremely serious problem there. It is so sand-gravel mix (...) that the least advised people are condemned to already envisaging the time when this large market of South America will be disputed to us and perhaps removed by the products of North America. Outlets should be sought… passage humanitarian quoted above is extracted from this part of speech I say that the colonial policy of France, that the colonial expansion policy, that which made us go, under the Empire, in Saigon, in Cochinchine, that which led us in Tunisia, that which brought us to Madagascar, I say that this colonial expansion policy took as a starting point a truth on which it is however necessary to call a moment your attention: with knowing that a navy as ours cannot do, on sea surface, of solid shelters, defenses, centers of supply. (...) To radiate without acting, without mixing with the businesses with the world, (...) is to abdicate, and, in a time shorter than you cannot believe it, it is to go down from the first rank to the third and the fourth…”

Political reverses

Released by the radicals, Jules Ferry fails for the designation of the President of the Republic the December 3rd 1887. One week later, it is wounded of a blow of revolver by a boulangist of the name of Aubertin. With the legislative elections of the September 22nd 1889, it is beaten by Mr. Picot, then president of the Sénat the February 24th 1893.

When he dies the March 17th 1893, the government decides to make him national funeral, but its family refuses because the government and Clemenceau in particular sought by all the means to discredit Ferry. It is buried in the vault of its family with Saint-Dié.

Quotations

Colonisation

“the colonial policy is girl of the industrial policy”
“the colonies are the valves of safety of our economy”
“the higher people have the right and even the duty to civilize the lower people”
“To radiate without having, it is to abdicate”

Patriotisme

“It is necessary to make pass the honor of the flag first of all. ”
“I wish to rest in the same tomb as my father and my sister, opposite this blue line of the Vosges from where goes up to my faithful heart the complaint of overcome. ”
“When we are strong, we will have the certainty to be able to negotiate. ”

Other

“the equality, it is the law even human progress! It is more than one theory: it is a social fact, it is the gasoline even and the legitimacy of the company to which we belong. ”

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