Ferry, Jules François Camille (1832–1893)

French republican politician, mayor of Paris during the siege of 1870–71. As a member of the republican governments of 1879–85 (prime minister 1880–81 and 1883–85), he was responsible for the 1882 law making primary education free, compulsory, and secular. He directed French colonial expansion in Tunisia in 1881 and Indochina (the acquisition of Tonkin in 1885).