Attempted assassination of Alexandre Millerand
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On Bastille Day 1922, anarchist Gustave Bouvet attempted to assassinate French President Alexandre Millerand.
Background
[edit]Gustave Bouvet (1898–1984) was raised in Angers and moved to Paris as a teenager. He was involved in the Anarchist Youth since his early 20s (1919) and took leadership positions in the Anarchist Federation. Bouvet also wrote for Le Libertaire under the pseudonym Juvénis and sentenced to ten months' imprisonment for printing and publicly posting a leaflet, "To Young Soldiers", in 1921.[1]
Assassination attempt
[edit]On July 14, 1922, the French national holiday of Bastille Day, French President Alexandre Millerand traveled in procession, returning from a Longchamps military parade with thousands of troops. As his carriage neared the presidential home, the Élysée Palace, on the Champs Elysees, Gustave Bouvet fired three shots of his revolver at a car, believing it to be the president's. In fact it was the Prefect of Police. The president rode in an open carriage hundreds of feet behind him. The president's Algerian cavalry guard of honor surrounded the president for protection.[2]
Police on bicycle pursued the shooter, plucking Bouvet from a crowd that was assaulting him, and returning him to the police station, where his identity and prior imprisonment was ascertained. President Millerand, in the afternoon, traveled to French General Hubert Lyautey and made him a Marshal of France.[2]
Aftermath
[edit]The shooter was sentenced in January 1923 to five years of labor and ten years of banishment from France. However, he was released two years into the sentence, in January 1925, and was partially paralyzed. He would marry and live for another 59 years.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Maitron, Jean; Dupuy, Rolf (August 11, 2020). "BOUVET Gustave, Charles, Joseph (dit Juvénis)". Dictionnaire des anarchistes (in French). Paris: Maitron/Editions de l'Atelier. Archived from the original on February 19, 2022. Retrieved February 20, 2022.
- ^ a b "Attempt to Assassinate Millerand". The Continent. 53 (29). McCormick Publishing Company: 927. 1922-07-20. OCLC 2446182. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
Further reading
[edit]- "Anarchist Tries to Kill Millerand". The New York Times. July 15, 1922. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 20, 2022. Retrieved February 20, 2022.
- "Bouvet's Avowal". The Times (43087): 9. 1922-07-19. Gale CS151589619.
- "French Communist Sentenced". The Times (43234): 9. 1923-01-09. Gale CS151589929.
- "M. Millerand's Escape". The Times (43084): 8. 1922-07-15. Gale CS135205615.
- "Plot to Kill French Premier". The Times (43101): 7. 1922-08-04. Gale CS119476996.
