A republican politician who became an architect of Vichy collaboration
In 1942, while calling for labor mobilization, he publicly declared that he desired a German victory.
Pierre Laval began as a lawyer and Socialist politician, then moved rightward and became a leading minister and prime minister of the Third Republic. After France's defeat in 1940, he helped secure Pétain's full powers and the dismantling of the constitutional order, making himself central to the Vichy regime. He believed collaboration with Germany could preserve France's position, and after returning to power in 1942 he expanded labor provision and police cooperation. Convicted of treason after liberation, he was executed in 1945.
Career timeline
- 1903–1922Socialist activist and lawyer
- 1914–1919Deputy in the Chamber of Deputies
- 1923–1944Mayor of Aubervilliers
- 1931–1932President of the Council
- 1934–1936Foreign minister and President of the Council
- 1940.06–12Vice-President of the Vichy Council of Ministers
- 1942.04–1944.08Head of the Vichy government
- 1945Tried by the High Court and executed
The Popular Front's interior minister, hounded to death by the far-right press
In a note to Blum before turning on the gas, he wrote: "If they could not succeed in dishonouring me, they will at least bear responsibility for my death. I am neither a deserter nor a traitor."
A Socialist politician, mayor of Lille, and Blum's interior minister. In the strike wave of June 1936 he refused to clear the occupied factories by force, and he carried out the dissolution of the far-right leagues, the first item of the Popular Front programme. When the far-right weekly Gringoire barraged him with a fabricated story of desertion in the First World War, a military court of honour and an overwhelming vote of the Chamber cleared him twice over; the campaign did not stop, and on 17 November he took his own life at his home in Lille. Hundreds of thousands came to his funeral, and his death set off the debate on legislating against press defamation.
Career timeline
- 1890–1914Socialist student politics in Lille; party journalist
- 1914–1918Captured retrieving a comrade's body; German prison camps
- 1925–1936Mayor of Lille
- 1928–1936Deputy; leader of the SFIO's Nord federation
- 1936.06Interior minister: no force against the occupations; dissolves the leagues
- 1936.07–11Gringoire's fabricated desertion campaign; cleared by a court of honour and the Chamber
- 1936.11.17Takes his life in Lille; vast crowds at his funeral
The undersecretary for leisure and sport who designed the workers' first holidays
'Our simple and human aim is to let the mass of French youth find joy and health in sport, and to organize the leisure of the workers so that they may enjoy the joy of life and the dignity regained', radio address on taking office, 10 June 1936
A lawyer and Socialist deputy who took the post the Blum government created first in the world: undersecretary for leisure and sport. With the railways' 40-per-cent-discount 'popular tickets', a boom in youth hostels and a popular sports certificate, he organized 600,000 first paid holidays in the summer of 1936, defining leisure policy as the restoration of dignity to workers. Volunteering for service in 1939, he was killed by shellfire on the Aisne front on 9 June 1940. Thousands of stadiums and gymnasiums across France carry his name today.
Career timeline
- 1900–1932From the Nord; lawyer in Paris
- 1932–1940Socialist deputy
- 1936.06The world's first undersecretary for leisure and sport
- 1936600,000 first holidays on the discounted 'popular tickets'
- 1936–1938Youth hostels; creates the popular sports certificate
- 1939–1940Volunteers for service; killed on the Aisne front, 9 June 1940
