L’Écho d’Alger
- THE DUPES' TOUR
- National Council of the S.F.I.O. Party
- A MOTHER-IN-LAW'S CRIME
The Algiers daily L'Écho d'Alger opened this front page with a sarcastic editorial, signed in the paper's own name, about Governor-General Maurice Viollette's trip into the Oran region. The paper treated the journey as a restless outing paid for by the colony and suggested its real purpose was electoral, since it fell just before the Financial Delegations met and as the senatorial campaign began. A Paris dispatch described the Socialist (S.F.I.O.) National Council choosing between two motions on Senate lists. Blum and Bracke wanted all-socialist lists. Renaudel and Marquet wanted to allow joint left-wing lists while ruling out any pact with the Communists. A Lille dispatch described Marie Lefebvre, who had been sentenced to death, waking calmly in her cell next to that of the poisoner Mélanie Beccart.
Translation
THE DUPES' TOUR
It is quite amusing — not the history, the word would be too big, but the little page of history that M. Viollette has just written in Oranie. M. Viollette, who, as people have noticed over the past year, needs to get some air, and who feels cramped in the department of Algiers, has set off westward. Not for Oran, where the ground is slipping, but for the surroundings of Oran. In normal times one might have thought he was merely indulging his restlessness. At the present hour, one is obliged to note that this trip, for which the Colony, of course, pays the costs, is taking place a few days before the opening of the Financial Delegations and just as the campaign for the senatorial elections is opening.
National Council of the S.F.I.O. Party
Paris, 1 November. — A new session this morning at the Bellevilloise, chaired by M. Fernand Bouisson, vice-president of the Chamber, brought together the delegates of the National Council of the Socialist Party. Last night the Assembly had appointed a resolutions committee composed of MM. Renaudel, Zirowski, Maurin, Marquet, Kahn, Nicollet, Cayrei, etc., charged with ruling on two motions: 1) that of M. Léon Blum and Bracke; 2) that of MM. Renaudel and Marquet. Let us recall that the first of these motions obliges the departmental federations to present complete lists of Socialist candidates in the senatorial elections; the other simply trusts them to take their cue from local circumstances and to present either exclusive lists or joint lists agreed with the other parties of the left, while nevertheless forbidding them any electoral alliance with the Communists.
A MOTHER-IN-LAW'S CRIME
Lille, 1 November. — The day after her sentencing, Marie Lefebvre awoke calm behind the red-brick walls of the massive Cuincy prison. Her cell is next to that of Mélanie Beccart, the poisoner of Haverskerque, who has also been sentenced to death. It is the first time in Douai that two women destined for the scaffold have awaited the same fate side by side.
Context
Why L'Écho d'Alger mocked Governor-General Viollette
The "M. Viollette" of the editorial is Maurice Viollette, a Radical politician who served as Governor General of Algeria from 1925 to 1927. When the paper complains that "the Colony" pays for his trip, it is attacking the head of the colonial administration himself. As governor, Viollette tried to carry on the liberal ideas of an earlier governor, Charles Jonnart, and much of the European settler population disliked him for it. In 1926 a humorists' salon in Algiers showed him as a nursemaid bottle-feeding two "native" children, which captures the settler caricature of him as too indulgent towards the Muslim population. L'Écho d'Alger was the daily founded in 1912 by Étienne Bailac, and it spoke for that settler opinion. Read against this background, the editorial's jibes are the paper's hostile interpretation of the journey, not an established account of why Viollette made it. Those jibes include Viollette feeling cramped in the Algiers department, the ground "slipping" in Oran, and a tour timed for the Financial Delegations and the senatorial campaign.
What became of Viollette and his Algerian reforms
Viollette left Algeria and returned to metropolitan France two years after his appointment, and the majority of the European population there was not sorry to see him go. His career went on: he became a senator in 1930 and served as Minister of State in the Popular Front government. In 1936 he and Léon Blum put forward the Blum–Viollette proposal, which would have let a small number of Algerian Muslims obtain full French citizenship. Settler politicians and their newspapers fought the plan hard. After Blum's government fell, Viollette, whom L'Écho d'Alger had nicknamed "Violette l'arbi" ("Viollette the Arab"), lost all influence, and the proposal was dropped. The 1926 editorial is therefore an early example of a feud between this paper and Viollette that ran into the late 1930s.
The Socialist dispute over Senate lists
The S.F.I.O. was only a small force in the Senate, which under the Third Republic was as powerful as the Chamber of Deputies. In 1921 the Socialists held two Senate seats. In 1927 they held fourteen, enough to form a group of their own. A history of the party's Senate strategy says that in the interwar years the S.F.I.O. aimed to field lists made up entirely of Socialists in the first round. Some members objected, arguing that an alliance with the Radical-Socialists would win more seats. That is the dispute the Paris dispatch reports. The Blum–Bracke motion required complete Socialist lists, while the Renaudel–Marquet motion left it to local federations to agree joint lists with other left-wing parties. Both motions ruled out any alliance with the Communists. The excerpt translated here stops before the vote, but a subheading on the same page reports that the assembly voted for the Blum–Bracke motion, the line that matches the strategy the historians describe.
Were the two women at Douai likely to be executed?
Under the Third Republic, only the President of the Republic could commute a death sentence, and presidents often did. Armand Fallières, who supported abolition, pardoned every convict sentenced to death during the first three years of his term (1906–1913). Executions of women had become especially rare. When Marshal Pétain refused to pardon five women condemned to the guillotine under the Vichy regime, no woman had been guillotined in France for more than fifty years. If that is correct, neither Marie Lefebvre nor Mélanie Beccart was guillotined, and their sentences were presumably commuted. The background pages consulted here do not record the decisions in their individual cases. The Lille dispatch's remark that two condemned women were waiting side by side for the first time in Douai is the newspaper's own claim.
Original
LA TOURNÉE DES DUPES
Elle est bien amusante, non pas l'histoire, le mot serait trop gros, mais la petite page d'histoire que vient d'écrire M. Viollette en Oranie. M. Viollette qui a, on s'en est aperçu depuis un an, besoin de prendre l'air, et qui se trouve gêné dans le département d'Alger, est parti vers l'Ouest. Non pas pour Oran, où le terrain glisse, mais pour les environs d'Oran. En temps normal, on eut pu croire qu'il satisfaisait seulement son besoin de bougeotte. A l'heure présente, on est obligé de constater que ce déplacement dont la Colonie, bien entendu, paie les frais, a lieu quelques jours avant l'ouverture des Délégations financières et juste au moment où s'ouvre la campagne électorale pour les élections sénatoriales.
Conseil national du Parti S.F.I.O.
Paris, 1er novembre. - Une nouvelle séance réunissait, ce matin, à la Bellevilloise, sous la présidence de M. Fernand Bouisson, vice-président de la Chambre, les délégués du Conseil national du Parti socialiste. L'Assemblée avait désigné, hier soir, une commission des résolutions composée de MM. Renaudel, Zirowski, Maurin, Marquet, Kahn, Nicollet, Cayrei, etc., avec mission de se prononcer sur deux motions: 1 ° de M. Léon Blum et Bracke; 2 ° de MM. Renaudel et Marquet. Rappelons que la première de ces motions fait aux fédérations départementales l'obligation de présenter des listes complètes de candidats socialistes aux élections sénatoriales; l'autre leur fait simplement confiance pour s'inspirer des circonstances locales et présenter soit des listes exclusives, soit des listes communes d'accord avec les autres partis de gauche, mais leur interdisant cependant toute alliance électorale avec les communistes.
LE CRIME d'une belle-mère
Lille, 1er novembre. - Le lendemain de sa condamnation, Marie Lefebvre s'est éveillée paisible, derrière les murs en briques rouges de la lourde prison de Cuincy. Sa cellule voisine avec celle de Mélanie Beccart, l'empoisonneuse d'Haverskerque, elle aussi condamnée à mort. C'est la première fois, à Douai, que deux femmes vouées à l'échafaud attendent côte à côte le même destin.