Pierre Marie René Waldeck-Rousseau

Born Dec. 2, 1846, in Nantes; died Aug. 10, 1904, in Corbeil. French political leader and statesman. By profession a lawyer.

From 1879 to 1889, Waldeck-Rousseau was a member of the Chamber of Deputies and belonged to the moderate bourgeois republicans. In 1881 and again from 1883 to 1885 he was minister of internal affairs. In 1884 he put through a law that legalized trade unions. During the acute political crisis brought about by the Dreyfus Affair, Waldeck-Rousseau had recourse to a political maneuver in the interests of the big bourgeoisie. He formed a government of so-called republican concentration (1899-1902) that encompassed all groups from the reactionary general G. Galliffet to the socialist A. E. Millerand.