Émile Justin Louis Combes (
Joseph Athanase Doumer, commonly known as Paul Doumer, was a French politician who served as the President of France from June 1931 until his assassination in May 1932. He is described as "the Father of French Indochina," and was seen as one of the most active and effective governors general of Indochina.
Jules François Camille Ferry was a French statesman and republican philosopher. He was one of the leaders of the Moderate Republicans and served as Prime Minister of France from 1880 to 1881 and 1883 to 1885. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion. Under the Third Republic, Ferry made primary education free and compulsory through several new laws. However, he was forced to resign following the Sino-French War in 1885 due to his unpopularity and public opinion against the war.
Pierre Marie René Ernest Waldeck-Rousseau was a French Republican politician who served for three years as the Prime Minister of France.
Alexandre Millerand was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 20 January to 23 September 1920 and President of France from 23 September 1920 to 11 June 1924. His participation in Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet at the start of the 20th century, alongside the Marquis de Galliffet, who had directed the repression of the 1871 Paris Commune, sparked a debate in the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) and in the Second International about the participation of socialists in bourgeois governments.
Maurice Rouvier was a French statesman of the "Opportunist" faction, who served as the Prime Minister of France. He is best known for his financial policies and his unpopular policies designed to avoid a rupture with Germany.
Léon Victor Auguste Bourgeois was a French statesman. His ideas influenced the Radical Party regarding a wide range of issues.
Aristide Pierre Henri Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic. He is mainly remembered for his focus on international issues and reconciliation politics during the interwar period (1918–1939).
The Grand Orient de France (GODF) is the oldest and largest of several Freemasonic organizations based in France and is the oldest in Continental Europe. The Grand Orient de France is generally regarded as the "mother lodge" of Continental Freemasonry.
The 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and State was passed by the Chamber of Deputies on 3 July 1905. Enacted during the Third Republic, it established state secularism in France. France was then governed by the Bloc des gauches led by Émile Combes. The law was based on three principles: the neutrality of the state, the freedom of religious exercise, and public powers related to the church. This law is seen as the backbone of the French principle of laïcité (secularism). It is however not applicable in Alsace and Moselle, which were part of Germany when it was enacted.
Louis André was France's Minister of War from 1900 until 1904. A Freemason and fiercely loyal to the Third Republic, he was militantly anti-Catholic and anticlerical. He was the instigator of the Affaire Des Fiches, a scandal in which he received reports from Masonic groups on which army officers were practicing Catholics for the purpose of denying their promotions.
Charles Camille Pelletan was a French politician, historian and journalist, Minister of Marine in Emile Combes' Bloc des gauches cabinet from 1902 to 1905. He was part of the left-wing of the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, created in 1902.
The Affair of the Cards, sometimes called the Affair of the Casseroles, was a political scandal which broke out in 1904 in France, during the Third French Republic. It concerned a clandestine political and religious filing operation set up in the French Army at the initiative of General Louis André, Minister of War, in the context of the aftermath of the Dreyfus affair and accusations of anti-republicanism made by leftists and radicals against the Corps of Officers in the French Army who accused it of being a final redoubt of conservative Catholic and Royalist individuals within French society.
The Popular Liberal Action, simply called Liberal Action, was a political party that represented Catholic supporters of the French Third Republic. It operated in the center-right, primarily to oppose the left-wing Republican coalition led by Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau and Émile Combes who pursued an anti-clerical agenda designed to weaken the Catholic Church, especially its role in education. The ALP between 1901 in 1914 had its best election in 1902, with 78 deputies. It built a nationwide newspaper and propaganda network, had excellent funding. There were 1200 local committees, with 200,000 dues paying members in 1906.
Freemasonry in France has been influential on the worldwide Masonic movement due to its founding of Continental Freemasonry.
Paul Copin-Albancelli was a French journalist, nationalist and conspiracy author.
Léo Campion was a French actor and active freemason.
Fernand Chapsal was a French lawyer, administrator and politician who was Minister of Commerce in 1926 and in 1937–38, and Minister of Agriculture in 1938.
Vincent-Marie Farinole was a French advocate who was Senator of Corsica from 1894 to 1903.
Freemasonry under the Second Empire found itself under the tutelage of Napoleon III's authoritarian Empire. The Second Empire saw Freemasonry, and Freemasons in general, as a threat, and aimed to either control it or wipe it out. Refusing to submit to imperial rule, some Freemasons chose exile and embarked for England. To survive, the Grand Orient de France, the main Masonic obedience, and French Freemasonry in general - as they had during the revolutionary and First Empire periods - had to accept major concessions. To avoid dissolution, they opted for the "prince's protectors" solution, who were responsible for taking control. The authoritarian period saw the banning of political debate, and the fading and downsizing of the lodges, which suffered from low membership levels, before experiencing new dynamics and a new boom during the liberal period of the Second Empire.