Haussmann, Georges Eugène (1809-1891)

French administrator, financier, and civil servant. In 1853 he was made prefect of the Seine by Louis Napoleon who had vast schemes for the embellishment of Paris. Haussmann replanned medieval Paris 1853-70 to achieve the current city plan, with long wide boulevards and parks. The improvements transformed Paris, but their cost (which amounted to £34,000,000) and his authoritarianism led to considerable opposition, and in 1870 he was forced to resign.

In 1877 he became Bonapartist deputy for Corsica. His Memoirs were published in 1890-93.