Bienvenu Martin

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Jean-Baptiste Bienvenu Martin (July 22, 1847-December 10, 1943) was a French Socialist leader and cabinet officer. He was born at Saint-Bris (Yonne), and was educated in the law. He held an underprefecture, entered the Council of State, and in 1894 became director under the Minister of the Colonies. He was an unsuccessful senatorial candidate for Yonne in 1897; was elected deputy for Auxerre in that year; was reëlected in 1898 and 1902; and in 1905 became Senator for Yonne. In the Chamber he supported the Waldeck-Rousseau and the Combes ministries, and advocated the separation of church and state. In 1904 he organized the new Radical Socialist group of the Left. In 1905-06 he held the portfolio of Public Instruction in the Rouvier cabinet; he was Minister of Justice in the Doumergue cabinet in 1913-14, and in the first Vivandi cabinet organized in June, 1914; and when the War in Europe broke out in 1914, he became Minister of Labor in the second Vivandi cabinet, formed August 26 of that year.