Ferdinand Barrot

Ferdinand Victorin Barrot (10 January 1806 – 12 November 1883) was a French Bonapartist politician who carried the portfolio of Interior Minister of France, 31 October 1849 to 15 March 1850.

Following the Revolution of 1830 he served for a time as an assistant procurator at the civil tribunal of the département of the Seine, but quit the magistrature after some time to return to the bar, where he pleaded several politically charged cases, notably that of Colonel Vaudrey implicated in the attempted insurrection at Strasbourg fomented by prince Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, in which he obtained acquittal, 18 January 1837.

Having failed to be returned 23 May 1849, he was elected for the département of the Seine in a by-election to fill vacated seats, 8 July 1849.

He voted generally in the revolutionary year of 1848 with the right: against clubs and associations (18 June 1848), but with the Left against re-establishing press controls (9 August); with the prosecution against Louis Blanc and Caussidière (26 August); against the Pyat amendment concerning right to work (2 November); for the French expedition to Rome (30 November); against the suppression of the salt tax (27 December).

Allied with prince Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, whom he had assisted before the Camber of Peers after the Boulogne affair (1840), he associated himself with Napoleon's party and was named secrétaire de la Présidence (1849), Minister of the Interior (31 October 1849), and ambassador to Turin upon leaving the ministry in March 1850.