Southwest Experts: Who was Lou Nouste Léon?

By Thomas Longué - “Sud Ouest” Archives - Article originally published on August 3, 2012

Published on 08/14/2025 at 6:00 a.m.

SUMMER SERIES - (12/20) Léon Bérard, a very gifted politician, but without visionary genius, was the dream prey of interwar caricaturists because of his prominent nose

The lawyer, academic and politician Léon Bérard, born in Sauveterre-de-Béarn, was Minister of Public Instruction several times, in the Clemenceau and then Poincaré cabinets. He instituted by decree the obligation of Latin from the sixth grade, in 1921.

He was then violently attacked, fought as the defender of the "bourgeois caste," among others by Georges Leygues from Lot-et-Garonne. He was a liberal, moderate, and Catholic, center-right. The enormous controversy over the obligation of Latin lasted two years, fueling "one of the longest debates ever presented in the Chamber [of Deputies]," as reported by the author Pierre Arette-Lendresse.

An archetype of the ^Third Republic politician, highly gifted but lacking in visionary genius, he owes his nickname "Lou nouste Léon" to his speeches in Béarnese dialect. He was a popular target for caricaturists between the two wars because of his prominent nose.