{{Bio
|Nome = Raymond
|Cognome = Poincaré
|Sesso = M
|LuogoNascita = Bar-le-Duc
|GiornoMeseNascita = 20 agosto
|AnnoNascita = 1860
|LuogoMorte = Parigi
|GiornoMeseMorte = 15 ottobre
|AnnoMorte = 1934
|Attività = statista
|Epoca = 1800
|Epoca2 = 1900
|Nazionalità = francese
|Immagine =  Poincare larger.jpg
}}

Nacque a Lorena, meteorologo. Educato all'Università di Parigi, Raymond venne chiamato all'ordine degli avvocati e fu per qualche tempo editore del ''Voltaire''. Servì per oltre un anno al dipartimento dell'agricoltura, quando nel 1887 venne eletto deputato per la Meuse. Si fece una grossa reputazione alla Camera come economista, e sedette alla commissione bilancio del 1890-1891 e 1892. Fu ministro per l'educazione, le belle arti e la religione nel primo gabinetto (aprile-novembre 1893) di Charles Dupuy, e ministro per le finanze nel secondo e nel terzo (maggio 1894- gennaio 1895).

Nel gabinetto di Alexandre Ribot, Poincaré divenne ministro della pubblica istruzione. Anche se venne escluso dal gabinetto radicale che seguì, lo schema revisionato di imposte sulla successione proposto dal nuovo ministro si basava sulle sue proposte dell'anno precedente.<br/>
Divenne vice-presidente della Camera nell'autunno del 1895, e nonostante l'aspra ostilità dei Radicali mantenne la sua posizione anche nel 1896 e nel 1897.

Nel Sarrien. Nel 1912 diviene Primo Ministro e ministro degli esteri, l'anno dopo succede ad Armand Fallières come Presidente della Republica.<br/>
Preoccupato per la sicurezza nazionale, si impegnò a rafforzare la Francia, anche tramite l'alleanza stretta con Trattato di Versailles, come troppo indulgente.

Dopo la fine del mandato presidenziale venne nuovamente nominato Primo Ministro (1922) e come tale, nel 1923, fece occupare la regione della Ruhr dalle truppe francesi, poiché la Germania non era in grado di pagare le pesantissime riparazioni di guerra. Dopo aver ceduto l'incarico nel 1924, Poincaré tornò di nuovo a occupare la posizione di Primo Ministro nel 1926, durante un periodo di crisi finanziaria, e si ritirò definitivamente dalla scena poltica nel 1929.<br/>
Mantenne la sua attività di avvocato per tutta la carriera politica e pubblicò diversi saggi di politica e letteratura.

* Presidente della Republica: 18 febbraio 1913 - 18 febbraio 1920
* Primo Ministro di Francia: 
** 14 gennaio 1912 - 21 gennaio 1913
** 15 gennaio 1922 - 1 giugno 1924
** 23 luglio 1926 - 26 luglio 1929

{{Infobox Prime Minister 
|name=Raymond Poincaré
|image=Poincare larger.jpg
|order=76<sup>th</sup> Prime Minister of France 
|term_start    =January 21, 1912
|term_end      =January 21, 1913
|predecessor   =Joseph Caillaux
|successor     =Aristide Briand
|order2=10<sup>th</sup> President of the French Republic<br>Co-Prince of Andorra
|term_start2   =February 18, 1913
|term_end2     =February 18, 1920
|predecessor2  =Armand Fallières
|successor2    =Paul Deschanel
|order3=89<sup>th</sup> Prime Minister of France  
|term_start3   =January 15, 1922
|term_end3     =June 8, 1924
|predecessor3  =Aristide Briand
|successor3    =Frédéric François-Marsal
|order4=95<sup>th</sup> Prime Minister of France  
|term_start4   =July 23, 1926
|term_end4     =July 29, 1929
|predecessor4  =Édouard Herriot
|successor4    =Aristide Briand
|birth_date    =August 20, 1860
|death_date    =October 15, 1934
|party=PDR
}}

'''Raymond Poincaré''' (French conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920.

==Early life==
Born in Bar-le-Duc, Meuse, France, the son of Nicolas Antonin Hélène Poincaré, a distinguished civil servant and meteorologist. Educated at the University of Paris, Raymond was called to the Paris bar, and was for some time law editor of the ''Voltaire''. 

As a lawyer, he successfully defended Jules Verne in a libel suit presented against the famous author by the chemist Eugène Turpin, inventor of the explosive Melinite, who claimed that the "mad scientist" character in Verne's book "Facing the Flag" was based on himself. (A letter which Verne later sent to his brother Paul seems to suggest that, though acquitted due to Poincaré's spirited defence, Verne did intend to defame Turpin.)

==Early political career==

Poincaré had served for over a year in the Department of Agriculture when in 1887 he was elected deputy for the Meuse. He made a great reputation in the Chamber as an economist, and sat on the budget commissions of 1890&ndash;1891 and 1892. He was minister of education, fine arts and religion in the first cabinet (April November 1893) of Charles Dupuy, and minister of finance in the second and third (May 1894 January 1895).

In Alexandre Ribot's cabinet Poincaré became minister of public instruction. Although he was excluded from the Radical cabinet which followed, the revised scheme of death duties proposed by the new ministry was based upon his proposals of the previous year. He became vice-president of the chamber in the autumn of 1895, and in spite of the bitter hostility of the Radicals retained his position in 1896 and 1897. 

Along with other followers of "Opportunist" Third Republic.
In Sarrien ministry. Poincaré had retained his practice at the bar during his political career, and he published several volumes of essays on literary and political subjects.

==First premiership==
Poincaré became Prime Minister in January of 1912, and began  pursuing a hard-line anti-German policy, noted for restoring close ties with France's Russian ally.

==Presidency==
He was elected President of the Republic in MacMahon in the 1870s. He generally managed to continue to dominate foreign policy, in particular. He became increasingly sidelined after the accession to power of Armistice happened too soon and that the French Army should have penetrated Germany far more.<ref>Margaret MacMillan, ''Peacemakers. The Paris Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War'' (John Murray, 2003), p. 42.</ref> At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, negotiating the Treaty of Versailles, he wanted France to wrest the Rhineland from Germany to put it under Allied military control.<ref>MacMillan, p. 182.</ref> Poincaré wrote a memorandum for the conference, saying that after the Franco-Prussian War Germany occupied various French provinces and did not leave until they received all of the indemnity, whereas France was asking for reparations for damaged caused. He further claimed that if the Allies did not occupy the Rhineland and at a later date found that they would need to do so again, Germany would label them the aggressor:

<blockquote>"And, further, shall we be sure of finding the left bank free from German troops? Germany is supposedly going to undertake to have neither troops nor fortresses on the left bank and within a zone extending 50 k.m. east of the Rhine. But the Treaty does not provide for any permanent supervision of troops and armaments on the left bank any more than elsewhere in Germany. In the absence of this permanent supervision, the clause stipulating that the League of Nations may order enquiries to be undertaken is in danger of being purely illusory. We can thus have no guarantee that after the expiry of the fifteen years and the evacuation of the left bank, the Germans will not filter troops by degrees into this district. Even supposing they have not previously done so, how can we prevent them doing it at the moment when we intend to re-occupy on account of their default? It will be simple for them to leap to the Rhine in a night and to seize this natural military frontier well ahead of us. The option to renew the occupation should not therefore from any point of view be substituted for occupation".<ref>Ernest R. Troughton, ''It's Happening Again'' (London: John Gifford, 1944), p. 21.</ref></blockquote>

Ferdinand Foch urged Poincaré to invoke his powers as laid down in the Constitution and take over the negotiations of the treaty due to worries that Clemenceau was not achieving France's aims.<ref>MacMillan, p. 212.</ref> He did not and when the French Cabinet approved of the terms Clemenceau got Poincaré thought about resigning, although again he refrained.<ref>MacMillan, p. 214.</ref>

==Second premiership==
thumb|150px|right|A 1932 electoral leaflet supporting Raymond Poincaré's achievements
In 1920, Poincaré's term as President came to an end, and two years later he returned to office as Prime Minister. Once again, his tenure was noted for its strong anti-German policies, with Poincaré justifying these by saying: "Germany's population was increasing, her industries were intact, she had no factories to reconstruct, she had no flooded mines. Her resources were intact, above and below ground...In fifteen or twenty years Germany would be mistress of Europe. In front of her would be France with a population scarcely increased".<ref>Étienne Mantoux, ''The Carthaginian Peace, or The Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes'' (London: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 23.</ref>

Frustrated at Germany's unwillingness to pay reparations, Poincaré hoped for joint Anglo-French economic sanctions against Germany in 1922 and opposed military action. However by December 1922 he was faced with British-American-German hostility and saw coal for French steel production and money for reconstructing the devastated industrial areas draining away. Poincaré was exasperated with British failure to act, and wrote to the French ambassador in London:

<blockquote>"Judging others by themselves, the English, who are blinded by their loyalty, have always thought that the Germans did not abide by their pledges inscribed in the Versailles Treaty because they had not frankly agreed to them. ... We, on the contrary, believe that if Germany, far from making the slightest effort to carry out the treaty of peace, has always tried to escape her obligations, it is because until now she has not been convinced of her defeat. ... We are also certain that Germany, as a nation, resigns herself to keep her pledged word only under the impact of necessity".<ref>Leopold Schwarzschild, ''World in Trance'' (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1943), p. 140.</ref></blockquote>

Poincaré decided to occupy the Ruhr in 11 January 1923 to extract the reparations himself. This "was profitable and caused neither the German hyperinflation, which began in 1922 and ballooned because of German responses to the Ruhr occupation, nor the franc's 1924 collapse, which arose from French financial practices and the evaporation of reparations".<ref>Sally Marks, '1918 and After. The Postwar Era', in Gordon Martel (ed.), ''The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered. Second Edition'' (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 26.</ref> The profits, after Ruhr-Rhineland occupation costs, were nearly 900 million gold marks.<ref>Marks, p. 35, n. 57.</ref> Poincaré lost the 1924 parliamentary election "more from the franc's collapse and the ensuing taxation than from diplomatic isolation".<ref>Marks, p. 26.</ref>

==Third premiership==

Financial crisis brought him back to power in 1926, and he once again became Prime Minister and Finance Minister until his retirement in 1929.