Jules Francois Camille Ferry was a French statesman and republican philosopher.
19 Facts About Jules Ferry
2.
Jules Ferry was one of the leaders of the Moderate Republicans and served as Prime Minister of France from 1880 to 1881 and 1883 to 1885.
3.
Jules Ferry was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion.
4.
Under the Third Republic, Ferry made primary education free and compulsory through several new laws.
5.
Jules Ferry was born in Saint-Die, in the Vosges department, to Charles-Edouard Jules Ferry, a lawyer from a family that had established itself in Saint-Die as bellmakers, and Adelaide Jamelet.
6.
Jules Ferry studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris in 1854, but soon went into politics, contributing to various newspapers, particularly to Le Temps.
7.
Jules Ferry attacked the Second French Empire with great violence, directing his opposition especially against Baron Haussmann, prefect of the Seine department.
8.
Jules Ferry was an active Freemason initiated on 8 July 1875, in "La Clemante amitiee" lodge in Paris the same day as Emile Littre.
9.
Jules Ferry became a member of the "Alsace-Lorraine" Lodge founded in Paris in 1782.
10.
Jules Ferry believed the path to a modernized and prosperous France lay in the triumph of reason over religion.
11.
Jules Ferry reorganized the committee of public education and proposed a regulation for the conferring of university degrees, which, though rejected, aroused violent polemics because the 7th article took away from the unauthorized religious orders the right to teach.
12.
Jules Ferry finally succeeded in passing his eponymous laws of 16 June 1881 and 28 March 1882, which made primary education in France free, non-clerical and mandatory.
13.
Jules Ferry predicted that Algeria could not escape a conflict between Indigenes and Europeans:.
14.
Jules Ferry played with political dynamite that eventually destroyed his success.
15.
Jules Ferry believed in not confronting Wilhelmine Germany by threats of a future war of revenge.
16.
Jules Ferry only wished to temporarily cripple France by the billion franc reparation, but suddenly he was confronted by the demands of Marshals Albrecht von Roon and Helmut von Moltke to annex the two French provinces as further payment.
17.
Jules Ferry got the two provinces, but he realized it would eventually have severe future repercussions.
18.
When Jules Ferry came up with a radically different approach to the situation and offered an olive branch, Bismarck reciprocated.
19.
Jules Ferry remained an influential member of the moderate republican party, and directed the opposition to General Boulanger.