Lawyer and politician. He was a member of the Progressive Party and of the Spanish Parliament, elected in Tarragona. He was imprisoned in 1867 in Madrid. From there, he was supposed to be deported but in the end, he went into exile to Portugal. In 1868 he joined Francesc Pi i Margall’s Republican Federal Party. In 1873, he served as the first president of the First Spanish Republic, when King Amadeo de Saboya abdicated (from February 12 to June 11, 1873). He was succeeded by Francesco Pi i Margall.
The death of his wife on April 20, 1873 affected Figueras and he decided to leave for Paris on June 10. He went back to Madrid in September.