Jules François Camille Ferry (French: [ʒyl fɛʁi]; 5 April 1832 – 17 March 1893) was a French statesman and republican philosopher. He was one of the leaders of the Moderate Republicans and served as Prime Minister of France from 1880 to 1881 and 1883 to 1885. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion. Under the Third Republic, Ferry made primary education free and compulsory through several new laws. However, he was forced to resign following the Sino-French War in 1885 due to his unpopularity and public opinion against the war.
Ferry was born in France, in the Vosges department, to Charles-Édouard Ferry, a lawyer from a family that had established itself in Saint-Dié as bellmakers, and Adélaïde Jamelet. His paternal grandfather, François-Joseph Ferry, was mayor of Saint-Dié through the Consulate and the First Empire. He studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris in 1854, but soon went into politics, contributing to various newspapers, particularly to Le Temps. He attacked the Second French Empire with great violence, directing his opposition especially against Baron Haussmann, prefect of the Seine department. A series of his articles in Le Temps was later republished as The Fantastic Tales of Haussmann (1868).
Elected republican deputy for Paris in 1869, he protested against the declaration of war with Germany, and on 6 September 1870 was appointed prefect of the Seine by the Government of National Defence.
In this position, he had the difficult task of administering Paris during the siege, and after the Paris Commune was obliged to resign (5 June 1871). From 1872 to 1873, he was sent by Adolphe Thiers as minister to Athens, but returned to the chamber as deputy for the Vosges, and became one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans. When the first republican ministry was formed under W. H. Waddington on 4 February 1879, he was one of its members, and continued in the ministry until 30 March 1885, except for two short interruptions (from 10 November 1881 to 30 January 1882, and from 29 July 1882 to 21 February 1883), first as minister of education and then as minister of foreign affairs. A leader of the Opportunist Republicans faction, he was twice premier (1880–1881 and 1883–1885). He was an active Freemason initiated on 8 July 1875, in "La Clémente Amitiée" lodge in Paris, the same day as Émile Littré. He became a member of the "Alsace-Lorraine" Lodge founded in Paris in 1782.
Two important works are associated with his administration: the non-clerical organization of public education, and the major colonial expansion of France.
Ferry believed the path to a modernized and prosperous France lay in the triumph of reason over religion. School reforms were a key part of his plan.
Following the republican program, he proposed to destroy the influence of the clergy in universities and founded his own system of republican schooling. He reorganized the committee of public education (law of 27 February 1880) and proposed a regulation for the conferring of university degrees, which, though rejected, aroused violent polemics because the 7th article took away from the unauthorized religious orders the right to teach. He finally succeeded in passing his eponymous laws of 16 June 1881 and 28 March 1882, which made primary education in France free, non-clerical (laïque) and mandatory. In higher education, the number of professors called the "Republic's black hussars" (French: hussards noirs de la République) because of their Republican support, doubled under his ministry.
The Finance Law of 30 January 1884 granted a national pension fund greater autonomy and, as noted by one study, "simplified its management, tasking it with providing for the payment of life annuities itself. The government wanted the Fund to henceforth balance its operations and no longer generate a deficit for the State."
After the military defeat of France by Prussia in 1870, Ferry formed the idea of acquiring a great colonial empire, principally for the sake of economic exploitation. In 1882, as minister of public instruction, he decided to create a mission to explore the Regency of Tunisia. The expedition was headed by the botanist Ernest Cosson and included the botanist Napoléon Doumet-Adanson and other naturalists. In 1884, a geological section under Georges Rolland was added to the Tunisian Scientific Exploration Mission. Rolland was assisted by Philippe Thomas from 1885 and by Georges Le Mesle in 1887.
In a speech on the colonial empire before the Chamber of Deputies on 28 March 1884, he declared that "it is a right for the superior races, because they have a duty. They have the duty to civilize the inferior races." Ferry directed the negotiations which led to the establishment of a French protectorate in Tunis (1881), prepared the treaty of 17 December 1885 for the occupation of Madagascar; directed the exploration of the Congo and of the Niger region; and above all, he organized the conquest of Annam and Tonkin in what became Indochina.
The last of these endeavours led to a war with the Qing dynasty China, which had a claim of suzerainty over the two provinces. The excitement caused in Paris by the sudden retreat of the French troops from Lạng Sơn during this war led to the Tonkin Affair: his violent denunciation by Clemenceau and other radicals, and his downfall on 30 March 1885. Although the treaty of peace with the Chinese Empire (9 June 1885), in which the Qing dynasty ceded suzerainty of Annam and Tonkin to France, was the work of his ministry, he would never again serve as premier.
The desire for a monarchy was strong in France in the early years of the Third Republic – Henri, Count of Chambord, having made a bid early in its history. A committed republican, Ferry undertook a wide-scale "purge" by dismissing many known monarchists from top positions in the magistrature, army, and civil and diplomatic service.
In the 1890s, he visited Algeria and provided a critical report. He predicted that Algeria could not escape a conflict between Indigènes and Europeans:
He was interested in providing education to the Indigènes, while the settlers were sceptical about this topic.
He was given a poor image of the settlers because they did not want to pay taxes.
He also noted that the Indigène was contributing to the Communes de plein exercice without profiting from it.
He considered the settlers were poorly chosen, and that they were too numerous
He was in favour of the self-government of Algeria but considered the settlers were not educated enough to do so