biography
| name: |
Gambetta, Leon (Michel)
|
pronunciation:
[gãbeta]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1838–82)
|
| biography:
| French Republican statesman and prime minister (1881–2), born in Cahors, SC France. He was called to the bar in 1859, and elected deputy in 1869. After the surrender of Napoleon III he helped to proclaim the Republic (1870), became minister of the interior in the Government of National Defence, made a spectacular escape from the siege of Paris in a balloon, and for five months was dictator of France. He led the resistance to MacMahon (1877), became president of the Chamber (1879) and briefly prime minister, but fell from office before implementing a programme of radical reform. |
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