Division and Democracy in France Sec. 3

1
Division and Democracy in FranceSec. 3

• Bellwork 3
• We saw sis who was racing around the store trying
  to find a pair of shoes unfortunately she found
  none she liked

2
Georges Clemenceau

• Napoleon III had surrendered to the Prussians,
  and now the Prussian forces are about to advance
  on Paris. Can the city survive?
• Clemenceau was a young doctor turned politician,
  he passionately urged Parisians to resist the
  Prussian onslaught.
• For four months, Paris did resist the German
  siege. Surrounded by Prussian troops, starving
  Parisians were reduced to catching rats and
  slaughtering circus animals for food. The siege
  did not end until January 1871, when the French
  government at Versailles accepted Prussias
  terms. Clemenceau would later play a part in
  shaping modern France.

3
France under Napoleon III

• 1860s the emperor began to lift some censorship
  and gave the legislature more power. On the eve
  of the disastrous war with Prussia, he even
  issued a new constitution that extended
  democratic rights.
• Economic Growth- At mid-century France prospered.
  During this period, a French entrepreneur,
  Ferdinand de Lesseps, organized the building of
  the Suez Canal to link the Mediterranean with the
  Red Sea and thus the Indian Ocean.

4
Foreign Affairs

• Napoleon IIIs worst failures were in warfare and
  diplomacy.
• 1860s, he attempted to place Maximilian an
  Austrian Hapsburg prince, on the throne of
  Mexico. Mexican patriots resisted fiercely and
  the United States protested. Maximilian was
  overthrown and shot by Mexican Patriots.
• A humiliating defeat- Franco-Prussian War was a
  disaster for France. After his humiliating
  surrender at Sedan, Napoleon III was overthrown.
  In 1871, the newly elected French national
  Assembly accepted a harsh peace with Germany.

5
The Paris Commune

• The war brought another catastrophe. In 1871,
  while Prussians still occupied eastern France, an
  uprising broke out in the French capital. The
  rebels set up the Paris Commune, its goal was to
  save the Republic from royalist control.
• Communards, as the rebels were called, included
  workers and socialists as well as bourgeois
  republicans.
• Radicals dreamed of a new socialist order and
  hoped to rebuild France into a loose federation
  of Communes. For weeks civil war raged. As
  government troops advanced the rebels toppled
  great Paris monuments and slaughtered hostages.
  Government forces butchered some 20,000
  Communards. The suppression of the Paris Commune
  left bitter memories that deepened social
  divisions within France.

6
The Third Republic

• It had two house legislature. The lower house, or
  Chamber of Deputies, was elected by universal
  male suffrage. Together with the Senate, it
  elected the president of the Republic. The real
  political power was in the hands of the prime
  minister.
• Coalition Governments- With so many parties, no
  single party could win a majority in the
  legislature. In order to govern, politicians had
  to form Coalitions, or alliances of various
  parties.
• This system allows citizens to vote for a party
  that most nearly matches their own beliefs.

7
The Dreyfus Affair

• 1894, an army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, was
  unjustly convicted of spying. The Dreyfus affair
  scarred French politics and society for decades.
  He had access to many military secrets. Most of
  the military elite detested Dreyfus because he
  was the first Jew to reach a high position in the
  French army. He was condemned to lifetime
  confinement on Devil's island, a tiny tropical
  isle off the coast of South America.

8
I Accuse

• Ferdinand Esterhazy, was soon charged as a spy.
• He was guilty of the crime for which Dreyfus had
  been convicted. The reason why Esterhazy got off
  he was a member of the French nobility. Despite
  strong evidence, a secret military court cleared
  him of all charges. Esterhazy then fled the
  country.
• In 1898, Emile Zola put his pen into action.
  JAccuse! blazed the newspaper headline. Zola
  charged the army and government officials with
  suppressing the truth and falsifying evidence.
• Finally, in 1906, his conviction was overturned.
  Alfred Dreyfus was reinstated in the army and
  awarded the legion of Honor.

9
Calls for a Jewish State

• 1896, Theodor Herzl, a Hungarian Jewish
  journalist living in France, published The Jewish
  State. In it, he called for Jews to form their
  won separate state, where they would have the
  rights and freedoms denied to them in European
  countries.
• Women Rights- 1909, Jeanne Elizabeth Schmahl
  founded the French Union for Womens Suffrage.
  She argued that women should be allowed to vote
  because they had become better educated and more
  independent.