Georges Clemenceau - Presidential Bid

Presidential Bid

In 1919 France adopted a new electoral system and the legislative election gave the National Bloc (a coalition of right-wing parties) a majority. Clemenceau only intervened once in the election campaign, delivering a speech on 4 November at Strasbourg, praising the manifesto and men of the National Bloc and urging that the victory in the war needed to be safeguarded by vigilance. In private he was concerned at this huge swing to the right.

His friend Georges Mandel urged Clemenceau to stand for the Presidency in the upcoming election and on 15 January 1920 he let Mandel announce that he would be prepared to serve if elected. However Clemenceau did not intend to campaign for the post, instead he wished to be chosen by acclaim as a national symbol. The preliminary meeting of the republican caucus (a forerunner to the vote in the National Assembly) chose not Clemenceau but Paul Deschanel by 408 votes to 389. In response Clemenceau refused to be put forward for the vote in the National Assembly because he did not want to win by a small majority but by a near-unanimous vote. Only then, he claimed, could he negotiate with confidence with the Allies.

In his last speech to the Cabinet on 18 January he said: "We must show the world the extent of our victory, and we must take up the mentality and habits of a victorious people, which once more takes its place at the head of Europe. But all that will now be placed in jeopardy...It will take less time and less thought to destroy the edifice so patiently and painfully erected than it took to complete it. Poor France. The mistakes have begun already".