Rene Coty
Rene Coty was elected on the thirteenth ballot because the assembly could not agree on anyone else, and left office by handing the republic to the man who abolished it. He was a lawyer from Le Havre, a conservative deputy from 1923, a senator from 1935, and a minister only briefly and late. In July 1940 he voted for the marshal's full powers, which kept him out of public life until 1945. His election in December 1953 took seven days and twelve failed ballots between candidates the assembly's factions each found unacceptable; Coty was proposed on the thirteenth as a man with no enemies because he had never been important enough to make any, and won. It was an exact demonstration of the Fourth Republic's inability to decide anything. His five years cost France most of its empire. The garrison at Dien Bien Phu fell four months into his term, Indochina was partitioned at Geneva that summer, and the rising in Algeria began that November. Tunisia and Morocco were given independence in 1956; the attempt to seize the Suez canal that same year collapsed under American financial pressure and demonstrated to both France and Britain that they could no longer act without Washington. Governments continued to fall every few months while half a million conscripts fought a war in Algeria that no cabinet could end or admit was a war. In May 1958 the settlers and the army in Algiers seized the government buildings, took Corsica, and prepared to drop paratroopers on Paris. Coty concluded that the constitution could not survive the week and told parliament that he would resign unless it summoned de Gaulle, which it did within a day. He handed over in January 1959, having used the only significant act of his presidency to end the republic he was president of.
- Lived: 1882 CE – 1962 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
