Boulevard Jean Jaurès

Jean Jaurès was born in 1859 in Castres (Tarn). After brilliant studies in philosophy, he taught in Albi and then in Toulouse. In 1885, he became deputy of the Tarn. From 1887, he worked for the newspaper "La Dépêche". As a town councillor and then deputy mayor of Toulouse, Jaurès was a connoisseur of the working class and became close to socialist militants. In his articles, Jaurès supported the Carmaux miners' strike in 1892. When the Dreyfus affair broke out, he became passionately committed to the cause of Dreyfus. The case involved not only individual injustice, but respect for humanity itself. Jaurès became aware of the resistance of capitalist society and the dangers revealed by the rise of nationalism and anti-Semitism. The defence of the republic became his primary objective. Jaurès headed the French Socialist Party with Edouard Vaillant and supported the participation of the Socialists in the government. Anxious to strengthen the Republic, Jaurès was one of the fathers of the 1905 law on the separation of church and state. Coming from a Catholic tradition himself, he defended the idea that an individual's religious beliefs should not deprive him of belonging to a community of destiny. He worked for the unity of socialists with the creation of the S.F.I.O. Having become an important political leader, Jaurès fought against the war during the last years of his life. A supporter of peace in 1914, he tried to change the government's policy to avoid war. Because of his pacifist ideas, he was assassinated on 31 July 1914 at the "Café du Croissant" by Raoul Villain. His ashes will be transferred to the Pantheon in 1924.