Country: | French Third Republic |
Type: | parliamentary |
Previous Election: | 1898 French legislative election |
Previous Year: | 1898 |
Election Date: | 27 April and 11 May 1902 |
Next Election: | 1906 French legislative election |
Next Year: | 1906 |
Seats For Election: | All 589 seats the Chamber of Deputies |
Majority Seats: | 295 |
Image1: | File:P. Waldeck-Rousseau.jpg |
Leader1: | Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau |
Alliance1: | Left Bloc |
Party1 Name: | no |
Seats1: | 338 |
Color1: | C96765 |
Leader2: | Jules Méline |
Party2 Name: | no |
Alliance2: | Progressives |
Seats2: | 127 |
Color2: | 8080C0 |
Image3: | file:Jacques Piou (Agence Meurisse, 1913) (cropped and adjusted).jpg |
Leader3: | Jacques Piou (lost election) |
Color3: | 22427C |
Alliance3: | Conservatives |
Seats3: | 124 |
Prime Minister | |
Before Election: | Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau |
Before Party: | ARD |
After Election: | Émile Combes |
After Party: | Radicals |
Legislative elections were held in France on 27 April and 11 May 1902. The result was a victory for the Bloc des gauches alliance between Socialists, Radicals, and the left wing of the Republicans, over the anti-Dreyfusard right wing of the Republicans, the progressistes. The Bloc des gauches had been brought together to support the "Republican Defense Cabinet" (gouvernement de défense républicaine) formed by Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau following the assault on the newly elected president, Émile Loubet, on the Longchamp Racecourse on 4 June 1899, during the Dreyfus affair.
However, Waldeck-Rousseau's own supporters (the ARD) took few seats in the election compared to the Radicals and Socialists. After the election, President Loubet invited the Radical Émile Combes to form a government, which lasted until January 1905, when the Socialists withdrew from the Bloc des gauches.[1]