Raymond Poincaré

Raymond Nicolas Landry Poincaré (1860–1934) was a French statesman from Lorraine who served as President of the French Republic from 1913 to 1920 and as Prime Minister on five separate occasions. A cousin of the mathematician Henri Poincaré and one of Paris's top lawyers, Poincaré was elected to the Chamber of Deputies at twenty-six, quickly establishing himself as a formidable leader of the moderate republican center.

As President of France throughout World War I, Poincaré forged the Union Sacrée ('Sacred Union'), uniting all rival political factions in steadfast national defense. In 1917, he set aside bitter personal enmity to appoint Georges Clemenceau as Prime Minister to lead France to victory. Returning as Prime Minister in 1926 amid hyperinflation, his fiscal discipline miraculously stabilized the national currency, earning him the national moniker 'Poincaré the Franc' (Poincaré le franc).