POINCARÉ, RAYMOND. - French politician, b. 20 Aug. 1860 at Bar-le-Duc (Meuse), d. 15 Oct. 1934 in Paris. At the age of 27, in 1887, he became a deputy for the first time. Re-elected in 1889, he was Minister of Public Instruction (in 1893 and 1895), holder of the Finance portfolio (1894-95) and vice-president of the Chamber from 1895 to 1898. He entered the Senate in 1903, became President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1912 during the Balkan crisis, and in 1913 he held the presidency of the Republic.
Eager to strengthen the Franco-Russian alliance, particularly vital in the event of war with the Central Powers, he went to Russia in July 1914, on a visit to the Tsar. At the outbreak of the war he appealed for the Union sacrée of all Frenchmen and remained head of state until 1920, the end of his seven-year term. Again President of the Council from 1922 to 1924 and from 1926 to 1929, when he gave it up for reasons of health, he contributed to the improvement of relations with the Holy See. A forthright representative of doctrinaire laicism - as Y. De La Brière defines him - P. without degenerating into sectarianism respected the religious faith of others, regarded as on a par with an individual freedom, but did not recognize for it any right within the sphere of public affairs, where the sovereignty of the State was undisputed. He was therefore in the true sense of the word a "legalist" and fully shared in the separation of Church and State, implemented in France in 1905. He published his memoirs on the period 1912-18 (Au service de la France, Paris 1926-33).