Panama Scandal

Panama Scandal, exposure of corruption in France’s Chamber of Deputies, an episode much exploited in propaganda by the enemies of the Third Republic. To overcome a financial crisis in 1888, Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique (the French Panama Canal Company), originally sponsored by Ferdinand de Lesseps, needed to float a lottery loan to raise money. The required legislative approval was received from the Chamber of Deputies in April and from the Senate in June 1888. Although French investors contributed heavily, the company collapsed in February 1889 as a result of corruption and mismanagement. A judicial inquiry into the affairs of the company was opened after some delay, and in the autumn of 1892 two newspapers, La Libre Parole and La Cocarde, accused the government of complicity with the directors of the company. A royalist deputy, Jules Deldhaye, further charged that “more than 150” parliamentarians had taken bribes to vote for the lottery loan in 1888. A parliamentary commission of inquiry was set up, and on Nov. 28, 1892, Émile Loubet’s government was forced to resign.

The bribery had been managed by three men: Baron Jacques de Reinach, a financier, who died on Nov. 19, 1892, presumably by suicide, and two adventurers, Léopold Arton (properly Aaron) and Cornélius Herz, who subsequently fled abroad. Charles Baïhaut, a former minister of public works, confessed to having received money and was sentenced in March 1893 to five years’ imprisonment. The other parliamentarians were acquitted for lack of proof. Georges Clemenceau, an associate of Herz (through whom he was alleged to have received money from the British), was discredited and temporarily retired from political life.