Louis Émile Cottin (March 14, 1896[1] – October 8, 1936,[2] nicknamed "Milou"[1][3]) was a French militant anarchist who is best known for the attempted assassination of Georges Clemenceau.

[1][4][5] In May 1918, he witnessed municipal guards open fire on striking workers at an aviation factory,[6] which he saw as an affront to his anarchist principles.

[1][4] At anarchist gatherings Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau was frequently blamed for breaking the strike, and Cottin decided to kill him.

[4] Clemenceau often joked about Cottin's bad marksmanship – "We have just won the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target 6 out of 7 times at point-blank range.

"[4] While Cottin was initially condemned to death, his sentence was commuted to ten years imprisonment after a campaign by French anarchist newspaper Le Libertaire, who noted that the successful assassin of Socialist leader Jean Jaurès had not received the death sentence, while Cottin, who had failed, had.