PAUL

See also:

• PAUL DOUMER (1857– )

DOUMER (1857– )  , French politician, was born at Aurillac . He studied law and made his debut in politics as chef de cabinet to Floquet, when president of the chamber in 1885 . In 1888 he was elected Radical deputy for the department of the Aisne . Defeated in the general elections of September 188g, he was elected again in 1890 by the arrondissement of Auxerre . As minister of finance in the Bourgeois cabinet (from the 3rd of November 1895 to the 21st of . April .1896) he tried without success to introduce an income-tax . In January 1897 he became governor of Indo-China, where he carried out important public works . In 1902 he returned to France and was elected by Latin to the chamber as a Radical . He refused, however, to support the Combes ministry, and formed a Radical dissident group, which grew in strength and eventually caused the fall of the ministry . Doumer became a prominent personage in Paris and was elected president of the chamber in January 19o5, being re-elected in January 1906 . At the presidential election of the 17th of January 1906 he was a candidate in opposition to M . Fallieres and obtained only 371 votes against 449; and the new chamber passed him over as its new president in favour of Henri Brisson .

As an author he is known by his L'Indo-Chine francaise (1904), and Le Livre de

mes fils (1906) .