Georges Trouillot

Trouillot ran in the general election of 1889, and was elected in the first round for the constituency of Lons-le-Saunier. He joined the Union of Progressives and Radical Left in the chamber. He was also elected president of the Jura departmental assembly. He was reelected deputy in 1893 and in 1898.[1] In 1891 Trouillot proposed a law against abortion and contraception. Discussion was long delayed, and the proposal was not passed by the Senate until January 1919.[2]

Trouillot introduced a bill to let anyone who held the degree of licence en droit practice as an avocat, removing the authority of the Order of Advocates to approve new members of their profession. In response, the Paris Order struck him off their register. The case went to court and Trouillot was reinstated on the basis that the disbarment hearings had not followed due process. The decision caused outrage among the leading advocates.[3] Trouillot assisted René Viviani in introduction of the law of 1 December 1900 that allowed women to practice as advocates following a campaign by Jeanne Chauvin, who became the second woman to be admitted to the profession.[4]

The public scandal of the Dreyfus Affair blew up in January 1898 with Émile Zola's publication in L'Aurore of his open letter entitled J'Accuse…!. Trouillot accused the premier Jules Méline of practicing the politics of division. Méline resigned during the debate of 14 June 1898.[5] Trouillot was appointed to the new Radical government formed late that month.[6] He was Minister of the Colonies in the second cabinet of Henri Brisson, and held office from 28 June 1898 to 26 October 1898.[5]

Trouillot saw little value in the French enclaves in India, and told the Foreign Minister that he would be willing to give them all to the British in exchange for the Gambia. The Polynesian island of Mangareva was more important to him than the French possessions in India. His views were not shared by the inhabitants of Mahé, who said it was capable of "rivaling in salubriousness with the best of sanatoriums of the Presidency of Madras."[7]

This was a time of rapid colonial expansion in Africa, where officers were given much freedom of action as long as they succeeded in acquiring territory.[8] Trouillot said in a speech in 1898, "Let us give ourselves a birth incentive so that we can once again become the world's foremost colonizing people."[9] In a decree of 7 August 1898 Trouillot created an office of financial control for French West Africa under the direction of the governor-general. This gave the colonialist a significant increase in independence from the metropolitan government.[10]

In July Trouillot wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Théophile Delcassé, that Major Jean-Baptiste Marchand was approaching Fashoda on the Nile, and the British general Herbert Kitchener would soon also arrive there. Delcassé did not reply until September, when he said Marchand should return before reaching Fashoda. By that time it was too late to prevent the encounter, so the letter was mainly so that the French could disavow Marchand if things went wrong, as it did in the Fashoda Incident.[11]

Trouillot played a central role in developing the Law of Associations. He was rapporteur for all the parliamentary debates on this law, working closely with the head of government, Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau. The law defined the legal status of associations such as mutual societies and agricultural cooperatives, and was developed through study of associations in the Jura, elsewhere in Europe and in the United States.[12] According to Trouillot, hostility to religious congregations had always been the reason why efforts to allow freedom of association had failed in the past,

The triumph of the cause of freedom of association has been delayed in the Chambers by the perpetual conflict between those who demand the privilege or unlimited advantages of this freedom for the congregations and those who see in its extension to the congregations the greatest danger to civil society. All the bills filed over the past thirty years bear traces of these concerns. Only eleven of them insisted on absolute conceptual equality between lay associations and religious congregations. All the others allowed for special precautions in dealing with the latter... These precautions themselves demonstrate the difficulty of the problem and explain the delay in finding a solution...[13] The thesis that the congregations are to be treated under a special regime is neither Jacobin nor Republican. In view of the social and economic perils that excessive growth of such associations represents, all our regimes, whether of old France or of the Revolution, have repeatedly warned against them. In every one of these periods mistakes may have been made concerning the effectiveness of the precautions taken, but there has never been any mistake about the need to protect both persons and property against this awesomely expansive power.[14]

Trouillot's answer was to curb the powers of associations to prevent abuse.[14] The law required almost all the religious orders and congregations in France to obtain legal authorization from parliament, and disallowed any member of an unauthorized order or congregation from teaching or managing a school.[15] The Law of Associations was passed in July 1901.[12] The church complained that the law resulted in a cascade of closures of schools and ecclesiastical establishments.[16]

Trouillot was Minister of Industry, Commerce and Posts from 7 June 1902 to 18 January 1905 in the cabinet of Émile Combes.[1] Trouillot, who was known for his anti-clericalism, followed a traditional policy in dealing with industrial issues. In March 1904 his predecessor Alexandre Millerand complained that his social program had been replaced by a program of "monk-hunting".[17] However, during a strike of textile workers in the fall of 1903 Trouillot agreed in substance with the strikers' complaints against the manufacturers, and the Chamber voted almost unanimously for arbitration to resume, and for a thorough inquiry into the textile industry.[18] Trouillot was again Minister of Industry, Commerce and Posts from 12 November 1905 to 9 March 1906 in the second cabinet of Maurice Rouvier.[1]

Trouillot was elected Senator for the Jura on 7 January 1906. He was again Minister of the Colonies from 24 July 1909 to 2 November 1910 in the cabinet of Aristide Briand.[1] On 31 May 1910 he decreed that the administrators of French Equatorial Africa had the power to adjudicate offenses committed by the indigenous people that could not be tried by the French courts.[19] Through his influence, most young men in the Jura were posted to the nearby garrisons at Lons-le-Saunier and Bourg for their military service. An unplanned consequence was that at the outbreak of World War I (1914–18) the department suffered disproportionate losses. Trouillot's canton of Beaufort suffered particularly large losses.[20]

Georges Trouillot died in Paris on 20 November 1916.[1] His daughter married the future colonial administrator Lucien Saint.[21]