Michel Chevalier (January 13, 1806—November 18, 1879) was a French engineer, statesman, economist and free market liberal.
In 1830, after the July Revolution, he became a Saint-Simonian, and edited their paper Le Globe. The paper was banned in 1832, when the "Simonian sect" was found to be prejudicial to the social order, and Chevalier, as its editor, was sentenced to six months imprisonment.
After his release, Minister of the Interior Adolphe Thiers sent him on a mission to the United States and Mexico, to observe the state of industrial and financial affairs in the Americas. In 1837 he wrote a well received work, Des intérèts matériels en France, after which his career took off.
At age 35, he would be appointed professor of political economy at the Collège de France. He would be elected a député for the département Aveyron in 1845, an appointment of Senator would follow in 1860.
Together with Richard Cobden and John Bright he prepared the free trade agreement of 1860 between the United Kingdom and France, which is still called Cobden-Chevalier-treaty.
He died in Montpellier.
1806 births | 1879 deaths | Alumni of the École Polytechnique | French journalists | French political writers | French politicians | French engineers | Important people in rail transport | Natives of Limousin | Proponents of free trade | Saint-Simonists
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