DEPRESSENSE,FRANCIS

The article relates the political career and intellectual evolution of Francis de Pressense, the president of the French League for hu man r ights from 1903 to 1914. Pressense was born into a prominent Protestan t family. For many years, Pressense is the foreign policy editor for L e Temps. The Dreyfus affair changes this moderate bourgeois into a fig hter for the cause of human rights and of socialism. Pressense is elec ted a deputy for Lyons in 1902; then he becomes the president of the L eague for human rights in 1903. At that time, he is a committed suppor ter of Combes' government and their anticlerical policies. He loins in 1905 the United Socialist Party. After the left Alliance has broken o ff he vigorously denounces the policies of Clemenceau and of Briand. H is stands in favour of workers' strikes lead to some serious clashes i n the L.D.H. Although he remains the president of the League, Pressens e is defeated in the general election in 1910. Very close to Jaures, h e fights until the end of his life - in January 1914 - to defend peace in Europe.