At the end of his mandate as President of France, refusing to compete against his eventual successor, Doumergue retired, but chaired a government of national unity during the crisis created by the riots of 6 February 1934.

[14][15][2] He attended the banquet given in Lyon by President Sadi Carnot on 24 June 1894, during which the latter was fatally stabbed by the Italian anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio.

He was very involved in France's colonial policy and, during his speeches at the podium (which were well-received on the left benches), criticized successive governments for their military interventionism[2] and in particular the occupation of Madagascar.

[17] From 1894, he also denounced the "benevolent indifference and not the pronounced sympathy" of public opinion vis-à-vis colonial policy, which masked the looting of conquered territories and the violence of the administration.

He was minister without interruption from 1906 to 1910, first for Trade and Industry, where he created the direction of the merchant navy, then for Public Instruction and Fine Arts from 1908, replacing Aristide Briand.

[26] From then on, Doumergue strove to reconcile the demands of the Radical party and the interests of the country, in an international horizon that was becoming darker: the statesman took precedence over the partisan.

"[29] The proposal to create an income tax by the finance minister, Joseph Caillaux, triggered a controversy among the conservatives, but was finally voted on in July 1914 by a Senate which had been hostile to it for five years.

The "Calmette affair", which led to the resignation of the minister, put the government in a difficult position as the tenth legislature ended and a delicate electoral campaign began.

The preceding 11 and 25 May saw the victory of the Cartel des Gauches in the legislative elections, despite a higher number of votes for the right and thanks to an electoral law granting a bonus to alliances.

[38] Paul Painlevé was brought to the head of the Chamber thanks to the votes of the Cartel also led by Léon Blum, Édouard Herriot, and Aristide Briand against the candidate of the right, André Maginot.

[40] The scandal of irregularities at the Bank of France overthrew the government and Doumergue resolved to appoint Paul Painlevé as President of the Council in order to unite Radical and socialist voices,[41] playing with designations according to the parliamentary pendulum.

Called to the Ministry of Finance in July 1926, Poincaré instituted a policy of austerity by bringing the franc back to its real value through a sharp devaluation.

This neo-liberal policy also generated a period of economic and financial prosperity, at a time when the United States was hit hard by the stock market crash of 1929.

Forced to evacuate the Ruhr, Saarland, and the Rhineland between 1925 and 1930, Doumergue's France was also duped by the German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann despite the signing of the Locarno Treaties.

After failed attempts at consultation by the prefect in place in Morocco, Doumergue decided to send Marshall Philippe Pétain, who quickly won the Rif War.

[44] In French Indochina in the 1920s, the Vietnamese nationalists of the VNQDĐ maintained an independence agitation (assassination of Alfred François Bazin, Yên Bái mutiny, etc.)

In South America, he helped Marcel Bouilloux-Lafont [fr], the director of the Compagnie générale aéropostale, obtain the postal contracts and flyover rights from Brazil and Argentina necessary for the operation of an air transport line.

Although an "old bachelor", he was nonetheless, according to historian Adrien Dansette [fr], "sensitive to feminine charm",[50] but his frequent passing liaisons were only the "Parisian manners of politicians".

[52] On 1 June 1931, twelve days before the end of his mandate, he married Gaussal in front of the mayor of the 8th arrondissement of Paris, Gaston Drucker, who had come specially to the Élysée, with the secretary-general of the presidency, Jules Michel, as his witness.

[56] Still popular, he was recalled as president of the council after the bloody events of 6 February 1934, to form a government of national unity where André Tardieu and Édouard Herriot rubbed shoulders.

This attempt did not succeed; in poor health, it was difficult for him to arbitrate within one of those cabinets in which the greatest hopes are generally placed because they symbolize the unity of the nation, but which are actually made up of ministers from all sides of the political spectrum who do not get along.