Ferdinand Favre

Ferdinand Abraham Favre (22 February 1779 – 16 July 1867) was a French industrialist and politician of the 19th century. He served as Mayor of Nantes from 1832 to 1848 and again from 1852 to 1866, with an interruption during the Second French Republic. He was also a deputy of Loire-Inférieure (1848–1857) and a senator during the Second French Empire (1857–1867).

Favre should not be confused with his uncle and brother-in-law, Ferdinand Petitpierre, who also moved from Couvet to Nantes in the late 18th century.

Favre was deeply involved in Nantes' illegal slave trade during the Bourbon Restoration. In 1824, he openly advertised in the Étrennes royales de Nantes his supply of goods for the slave trade.

Biography Family background and early life The Favre family of Couvet, originally from Besançon, were Protestants who sought refuge in Switzerland around 1670 due to religious persecution preceding the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Ferdinand was the son of Antoine Favre, an artisan, and Marguerite-Henriette Petitpierre, daughter of another Couvet artisan.

In 1793, during the French Revolution, Ferdinand and his parents moved to Nantes, where his older siblings—Abraham, Charles, and Rose-Marguerite—had already settled. Rose-Marguerite was married to Ferdinand Petitpierre (1746–1803), a fellow Swiss from Couvet and a wealthy manufacturer of printed cotton fabrics (Société Petitpierre Frères et Compagnie). entrusting the company’s management to Abraham Favre under a lease to protect his children’s interests. In 1801, Petitpierre purchased the Clos sur l’Eau estate in Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire. He died in 1803 and was buried on the estate, a common Protestant practice. Rose-Marguerite appointed Ferdinand Favre, her preferred brother, as guardian of her children, bypassing Abraham. When Abraham’s lease ended in 1806, he was replaced by Petitpierre’s sons, Ferdinand II and Aristide, under Ferdinand Favre’s guardianship. Abraham then founded his own company, “Favre-Petitpierre,” on the Île de Petite Biesse. The Clos sur l’Eau estate remained with Rose-Marguerite and later passed to her fourth son, Fleurus Petitpierre (1796–1859). Notable council members included Mathurin Peccot (1837, 1840), Saint-Félix Seheult (1840, 1843), Évariste Colombel (1843, resigned 1844), and Ange Guépin and Victor Mangin (1846).

Second Republic During the French Revolution of 1848, Favre, favoring a regency, was dismissed as mayor on 21 March 1848 by government commissioner Jacques-Hippolyte Maunoury, who appointed Évariste Colombel. However, Favre was elected a deputy to the Constituent Assembly on 23 April 1848 and re-elected to the Legislative Assembly on 13 May 1849. He was reinstalled on 31 January 1852 and re-elected in 1852, 1855, and 1860. He also became president of the Loire-Atlantique General Council on 7 August 1852 and served as a senator from 1857 to 1867.

Early in the Second Empire, Favre sought to make Nantes an imperial residence, proposing the purchase of the Château de l’Abbaye in Chantenay in 1853 and a residence for the imperial prince in 1856. Both proposals were declined.

In the July 1865 municipal elections, his list was defeated by the liberal opposition, including Ange Guépin and René Waldeck-Rousseau. Favre served as interim mayor until 19 January 1866, when he was succeeded by Antoine Dufour.

Honours Officer of Public Instruction Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour Commander of the Order of Isabella the Catholic

Legacy Quai Ferdinand-Favre in Nantes, along the Canal Saint-Félix, near the Lieu Unique.