Léon Bourgeois succeeds Jean Antoine Ernest Constans,…

Léon Bourgeois succeeds Jean Antoine Ernest Constans, as French Minister of the Interior, on March 1, 1890.

Bourgeois was born in Paris, and was trained in law.

After holding a subordinate office (1876) in the department of public works, he became successively prefect of the Tarn (1882) and the Haute-Garonne (1885), and then returned to Paris to enter the Ministry of the Interior.

He became Prefect of Police in November 1887 at the critical moment of Jules Grévy's resignation from the presidency.

In the following year, he entered the Chamber, being elected deputy for the Marne, in opposition to George Boulanger, and joined the Radical Left.

He was undersecretary for Home Affairs in Charles Floquet's ministry of 1888 and resigned with it in 1889, being then returned to the chamber for Reims.

In Pierre Tirard's ministry, which succeeded, he was Minister of the Interior, and subsequently, on 18 March 1890, Minister of Public Instruction in the cabinet of Charles Louis de Saulces de Freycinet, a post for which he had qualified himself by the attention he had given to educational matters.

In this capacity, he will be responsible for some important reforms in secondary education in 1890.

Bourgeois is Jewish.