From Resistance chief to architect of the Marshall Plan response, the foreign minister who told Molotov that Soviet actions divided Europe
On July 2, 1947, when Molotov denounced the Marshall Plan as a plot to divide Europe, Bidault rose and quietly replied that it was the Soviet Union, by its own actions, that was splitting the continent; the next day he and Bevin sent invitations to 16 nations.
Bidault succeeded Jean Moulin as president of the National Resistance Council in 1943, leading the French internal Resistance, and after the Liberation co-founded the Christian-democratic MRP. As foreign minister at the 1947 Paris Three-Power Conference, he answered Molotov's charge that the Marshall Plan was 'dividing Europe' with the retort that Soviet actions alone were splitting the continent; when Molotov walked out, Bidault and Bevin rallied 16 Western European nations behind the plan. He served as premier in 1946 and 1949–50, and as foreign minister during Dien Bien Phu he even asked the US for atomic bombs. An irreconcilable opponent of Algerian independence, he organized a clandestine 'second CNR' in 1962, lost his parliamentary immunity, and spent four years in Brazilian exile before the 1968 amnesty.
Career Timeline
- 1899Born in Moulins, Allier, France
- 1925First in the agrégation in history and geography; teaching and Christian-democratic journalism
- 1943–1944President of the CNR, succeeding Jean Moulin; led unified Resistance
- 1944–1946Foreign minister under de Gaulle; chief French delegate to the UN founding conference in San Francisco
- 1947Foreign minister; faced down Molotov at the Paris Three-Power Conference and led Marshall Plan adoption
- 1946, 1949–1950Prime minister twice: chairman of the Provisional Government (1946) and president of the Council (1949–50)
- 1954Foreign minister during the Dien Bien Phu crisis
- 1962–1968Stripped of immunity for opposing Algerian independence; exiled in Brazil; returned under the 1968 amnesty