“Parachuted” into the island by way of a parliamentary mandate, the Auvergnat Paul Doumer was despite everything a worthy representative for three decades, between 1912 and 1931. Before becoming one of the presidents of the Third Republic, and to be assassinated ten months after his election
May 6, 1932, Paul Doumer has been the President of the Republic for 10 months and 24 days. That day, he is present at the Parisian hotel Salomon de Rothschild to inaugurate the lounge of veteran writers. Suddenly, he is mowed down by two bullets from a pistol. The shooter is a Russian émigré, Paul Gorgulov. Arrested and then sentenced to death by the Assize Court of the Seine, the murderer who invoked France’s complacency towards the Bolsheviks as his motive was guillotined four months after the events.
As for her victim, she will die the day after the attack. At the time of his collapse, Paul Doumer was in full conversation with François Pietri, the then Minister of Defense. A detail that has nothing to do, however, with the countless messages of condolence later received in the prefecture of Ajaccio, or with the marble bust of the President of the Republic commissioned by the city of Bastia to the sculptor Yves Borghesi. The relationship between Paul Doumer and Corsica will have been much deeper.
Published in issue 71 of the journal Corsican studies, Amaury Lorin’s article titled “From parachuting to acclimatization” already says a lot about these three terms of senator from Corsica to which the native of Cantal was not predestined.
We are in 1911, Doumer has already distanced himself from the radical party to develop his political line towards the center-right. Already an unsuccessful presidential candidate, some call him pretentious, others predict the premature political death of one who is not yet in his fifties. He has, in fact, lost his mandate as deputy of Aisne, the department of his wife, and is struggling to bounce back elsewhere. Paul Doumer never set foot in Corsica, yet he would revive there until he lived the golden age of his public life there, and found there the springboard for even more prestigious functions.
Without experience or any ties to Corsica, the future President of the Republic can only benefit, in order to get involved, from what the political fold of the time qualifies as “party candidacy”. A more elegant expression than “parachuting”, often favored by large aircraft in their strategic aims. But also sometimes in response to local interests. “It was not the first, observes André Fazi, lecturer in political science at the University of Corsica. The first of these candidacies on the island dates from the Restoration. Later, Émile Combes* was a candidate in Corsica because his political camp could not decide between two local candidates.
A meeting with Bastia MP Henri Pierangeli is crucial for Doumer’s candidacy to be anything but risky. Sponsored by Bastia lawyer Antoine Gavini, Doumer will benefit from the solid foundation of a large bastion of local politics, which nevertheless has a reputation for a free electron, reluctant to ensnare any party since that he has distanced himself from the radical party.
The latter also gives himself the economist Adolphe Landry as a spearhead, facing the formidable Gavinist forces that the presence of the former deputy from Aisne increases tenfold. This is the context in which the latter will try to do well. There remains public opinion, necessarily suspicious of this candidate who has appeared out of nowhere.
The Great War is the tragedy of his life, he loses 4 of his 5 sons.
“Corsica is not a colony”, Write the Journal of Corsica, the arrival of Doumer being initially experienced as an insult. “Corsica is neither the landfill open to all ambitions and all shady combinations, nor the land of the blind and slaves.” add the Bastia-Journal which also qualifies the candidate as “Histrion from Indochina**, vulture from Auvergne, traitor to his party, burned everywhere”.
The “Gavinist soldier” campaign reversed the trend nonetheless. His tour of the villages aroused enthusiasm, he was elected on January 7, 2012, in the first round, totaling 59% of the votes of the departmental committee that constitutes the electorate. Paul Doumer is the best elected of the three senators of Corsica, but the ballot was stretched, until the arrest of armed individuals in front of the polling station of the prefecture of Ajaccio. Never before has a Corsican senator been so commented on by the Parisian press, which sees Doumer’s election as a camouflage inflicted on radicals.
Obviously, whoever finds a parliamentary seat on a political land of adoption is again on the upward curve. As he had done as a deputy, he imposed his stature on the upper assembly, asserting his expertise in the finance committee and that of the army, but the Great War which was looming was going to bring him its procession of misfortunes. The father of 8 children will lose 4 of his 5 sons. The drama of his life will not discourage his political ambitions. The year 1922 is that of a second candidacy in Corsica. The campaign highlights his record and demonstrates that his tenure has not only served his national ambitions.
Present on the island and active with its Parisian networks, Doumer has contributed considerably to the improvement of infrastructure on the island. In terms of transport and communication channels, in the service of water supply and agriculture, commercial maritime exchanges. It supports a project to expand the port of Bastia and oversees the financial assistance of the municipalities. The wind is so favorable to him that Cantal, which shunned him for a long time, also rolls out the red carpet for him for a candidacy for the senatorial elections. Doumer refuses to leave the island. “I cannot betray my voters. I will be a candidate in Corsica and nowhere else”, he declares before being re-elected with 52% of the vote, a score slightly lower than that of his first election. This second term earned him a return to government, and especially the presidency of the Senate.
A plebiscite which in spite of everything alters his aura on the island where he is beginning to be criticized for being too often absent and too concentrated on his national activities. 1929 will be the year of a third candidacy for a renewal of his mandate as senator, but the election this time is much more complicated. Doumer owes his re-election only to an unfortunate mixture of Landrist adversaries. His insular star wanes as his Elyos designs grow.
Much better equipped than during his first candidacy 25 years earlier, the President of the Senate became President of the Republic on June 13, 1931. For the shortest term of his political career. And the last of his life, a Russian activist who decided to attack, ten months later, the French head of state. “Vive Doumer”, had titled the Bastia-Journal the day after his senator entered the Elysée, paying homage to this tireless worker of modest origins, who was a courier from the age of 12 and then an engraver worker before graduating with a degree in mathematics. The island press did not imagine, then, the mourning in which Corsica was about to enter. She did not fail to point out that Corsica, after giving an Emperor to France, was proud to give her a second statesman.
* Minister of the Interior and Public Instruction under the Third Republic, the radical was finally elected senator in Charente-Inférieure. ** Doumer was governor there from 1897 to 1902.
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