Émile Cottin

Louis Émile Cottin (14 March 1896 – 8 October 1936, nicknamed "Milou" ) was a French militant anarchist who is best known for the attempted assassination of Georges Clemenceau.

Early life

Cottin was born to a working-class family in Creil, France on 14 March 1896, and raised in Compiègne. He found vocation as a cabinet-maker. which he saw as an affront to his anarchist principles. He explained that his motivation for killing Clemenceau had been the latter's unwillingness to allow Russian soldiers to return to their homeland after the revolution, instead sending them to Africa or even forcing them to fight against the Russian communists.

In the United States, authorities interpreted the assassination attempt as a part of a broader international conspiracy on the part of anarchists to assassinate world leaders, and raided the homes of several Spanish anarchists, arresting fourteen on charges of conspiracy to assassinate President Woodrow Wilson.

Later life and death

Following his release from prison, Cottin remained under house arrest for some time at both his parents' home and his children's. In 1936 he joined the Durruti Column, the largest anarchist column formed during the Spanish Civil War, and fell in battle at Farlete, near Pina de Ebro in the Province of Zaragoza, in Aragon, Spain.