Léon Blum
Léon Blum
Prime Minister of France
In office 4 June 1936 – 22 June 1937
Preceded by	Albert Sarraut
Succeeded by	Camille Chautemps
In office 13 March 1938 – 10 April 1938
Preceded by	Camille Chautemps
Succeeded by	Édouard Daladier
President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic 128th Prime Minister of France
In office 16 December 1946 – 22 January 1947
Preceded by	Georges Bidault
Succeeded by	Vincent Auriol (as President) Paul Ramadier (as Prime Minister)
Personal details
Born	9 April 1872 Paris, France
Died	30 March 1950 (aged 77) Jouy-en-Josas, France
Nationality	French
Political party	Socialist (SFIO)
Religion	Judaism

André Léon Blum (French pronunciation: [leɔ̃ blym]; 9 April 1872 – 30 March 1950) was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times Prime Minister of France.

First political experiences[link]

While in his youth an avid reader of the works of the nationalist writer Maurice Barrès, Blum had little interest in politics until the Dreyfus Affair of 1894, which had a traumatic effect on him as it did on many French Jews. Campaigning as a Dreyfusard brought him into contact with the socialist leader Jean Jaurès, whom he greatly admired. He began contributing to the socialist daily, L'Humanité, and joined the Socialist Party, then called the SFIO. Soon he was the party's main theoretician.

In July 1914, just as the First World War broke out, Jaurès was assassinated, and Blum became more active in the Socialist party leadership. In August 1914 Blum became assistant to the Socialist Minister of Public Works Marcel Sembat. In 1919 he was chosen as chair of the party's executive committee, and was also elected to the National Assembly as a representative of Paris. Believing that there was no such thing as a "good dictatorship", he opposed participation in the Comintern. Therefore, in 1920, he worked to prevent a split between supporters and opponents of the Russian Revolution, but the radicals seceded, taking L'Humanité with them, and formed the SFIC.

Blum led the SFIO through the 1920s and 1930s, and was also editor of the party's new paper, Le Populaire.

The Popular Front[link]

Blum was elected as Deputy for Narbonne in 1929, and was re-elected in 1932 and 1936. In 1933, he expelled Marcel Déat, Pierre Renaudel, and other neosocialists from the SFIO. Political circumstances changed in 1934, when the rise of German dictator Adolf Hitler and fascist riots in Paris caused Stalin and the French Communists to change their policy. In 1935 all the parties of left and centre formed the Popular Front, which at the elections of June 1936 won a sweeping victory.

On 13 February 1936, shortly before becoming Prime Minister, Blum was dragged from a car and almost beaten to death by the Camelots du Roi, a group of anti-Semites and royalists. The right-wing Action Française league was dissolved by the government following this incident, not long before the elections that brought Blum to power.^[1]

Blum became the first socialist and the first Jew to serve as Prime Minister of France. As such he was an object of particular hatred to the Catholic and anti-Semitic right, and was denounced in the National Assembly by Xavier Vallat, a right-wing Deputy and sympathizer of the Action Française (later Commissioner for Jewish Affairs in the Vichy wartime government), who said:

Your coming to power is undoubtedly a historic event. For the first time this old Gallo-Roman country will be governed by a Jew. I dare say out loud what the country is thinking, deep inside : it is preferable for this country to be led by a man whose origins belong to his soil... than by a cunning talmudist.^[2]

The industrial workers responded to the election of the Popular Front government by occupying their factories, confident that "the revolution" was imminent. For Blum, as a Marxist, this was an agonising moment. He did not believe that socialism could be achieved by parliamentary means. But he could not encourage the workers to launch a violent revolution : he believed that the army would intervene and the poor workers would be massacred again as they had been at the Paris Commune in 1871. He persuaded the workers to accept pay raises and go back to work.

Similarly, when the Spanish Civil War broke out, Blum was forced to adopt a policy of neutrality rather than assist his ideological fellows, the Spanish Left-leaning Republicans, for fear of splitting his alliance with the centrist Radicals, or even precipitating a religious civil war in France. His refusal to send arms to Spain strained his alliance with Communists, who followed Soviet policy, and urged all-out support for the Spanish Republic. The impossible dilemma caused by this issue led Blum to resign in June 1937.^[3]

He was briefly Prime Minister again in March and April 1938, long enough to ship France's heavy artillery and much needed military equipment to the Spanish Republicans.^[4] Blum was unable to establish a stable ministry in France. On 10 April 1938, Blum's socialist government fell and he was removed from office.

Despite its short life, the Popular Front government passed much important legislation, including the 40-hour week,^[5] paid holidays for the workers, collective bargaining on wage claims and the nationalisation of the arms industry. Blum also passed legislation extending the rights of the Arab population of Algeria. In foreign policy, his government was divided between the traditional anti-militarism of the French left and the urgency of the rising threat of Nazi Germany. Despite the division, the government managed to engage the greatest war effort since the First World War.

Second World War[link]

Leon Blum memorial in kibbutz Kfar Blum, Israel

When the Germans occupied France in June 1940, Blum made no effort to leave the country, despite the extreme danger he was in as a Jew and a socialist leader; instead of fleeing the country, he escaped to southern France, but the French ordered his arrest. Blum was imprisoned in Fort du Portalet in the Pyrenees.^[6] With two other political leaders, he was tried in the Riom Trial for "betraying his country". He was transferred to German custody and imprisoned in Nazi Germany until 1945.

Blum was among the "The Vichy 80", a minority of parliamentarians that refused to grant full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain. He was arrested by the authorities in September and held until 1942, when he was put on trial in the Riom Trial on charges of treason, for having "weakened France's defenses" by ordering her arsenal shipped to Spain, leaving France's infantry unsupported by heavy artillery on the eastern front against Nazi Germany. He used the courtroom to make a brilliant indictment of the French military and pro-German politicians like Pierre Laval. The trial was such an embarrassment to the Vichy regime that the Germans ordered it called off.

In April 1943, the occupying Government had Blum imprisoned in Buchenwald in the section reserved for high-ranking prisoners. His future wife, Janot Blum, chose to come to the camp voluntarily to live with him inside the camp.

As the Allied armies approached Buchenwald, he was transferred to Dachau, near Munich, and in late April 1945, together with other notable inmates, to Tyrol. In the last weeks of the war the Nazi regime gave orders that he was to be executed^{[citation needed]}, but the local authorities decided not to obey them. Blum was rescued by Allied troops in May 1945. While in prison he wrote his best known work, the essay À l'échelle Humaine ("For all mankind").

His brother René, the founder of the Ballet de l'Opéra à Monte Carlo, was arrested in Paris in 1942. He was deported to Auschwitz where, according to the Vrba-Wetzler report, he was tortured and killed in April 1943.

Post-war period[link]

After the war, Léon Blum returned to politics, and was again briefly Prime Minister in the transitional postwar coalition government. He advocated the alliance between the center-left and the center-right parties in order to support the Fourth Republic against the Gaullists and the Communists. He also served as an ambassador on a government loan mission to the United States, and as head of the French mission to UNESCO. He continued to write for Le Populaire until his death at Jouy-en-Josas, near Paris, on 30 March 1950. The kibbutz of Kfar Blum in northern Israel is named after him.

Government[link]

First ministry (4 June 1936 – 22 June 1937)[link]

• Léon Blum – President of the Council
• Édouard Daladier – Vice President of the Council and Minister of National Defense and War
• Yvon Delbos – Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Roger Salengro – Minister of the Interior
• Vincent Auriol – Minister of Finance
• Charles Spinasse – Minister of National Economy
• Jean-Baptiste Lebas – Minister of Labour
• Marc Rucart – Minister of Justice
• Alphonse Gasnier-Duparc – Minister of Marine
• Pierre Cot – Minister of Air
• Jean Zay – Minister of National Education
• Albert Rivière – Minister of Pensions
• Georges Monnet – Minister of Agriculture
• Marius Moutet – Minister of Colonies
• Albert Bedouce – Minister of Public Works
• Henri Sellier – Minister of Public Health
• Robert Jardillier – Minister of Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones
• Paul Bastid – Minister of Commerce
• Camille Chautemps – Minister of State
• Paul Faure – Minister of State
• Maurice Viollette – Minister of State
• Léo Lagrange – Under-Secretary of State for the Organization of the leisure activities and sports -i.e. Minister for the Sports-

Changes:

• 18 November 1936 – Marx Dormoy succeeds Roger Salengro as Minister of the Interior, following Salengro's suicide.

Second ministry (13 March – 10 April 1938)[link]

• Léon Blum – President of the Council and Minister of Treasury
• Édouard Daladier – Vice President of the Council and Minister of National Defense and War
• Joseph Paul-Boncour – Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Marx Dormoy – Minister of the Interior
• Charles Spinasse – Minister of Budget
• Albert Sérol – Minister of Labour
• Marc Rucart – Minister of Justice
• César Campinchi – Minister of Military Marine
• Guy La Chambre – Minister of Air
• Jean Zay – Minister of National Education
• Albert Rivière – Minister of Pensions
• Georges Monnet – Minister of Agriculture
• Marius Moutet – Minister of Colonies
• Jules Moch – Minister of Public Works
• Fernand Gentin – Minister of Public Health
• Jean-Baptiste Lebas – Minister of Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones
• Ludovic-Oscar Frossard – Minister of Propaganda
• Vincent Auriol – Minister of Coordination of Services of the Presidency of the Council
• Pierre Cot – Minister of Commerce
• Paul Faure – Minister of State
• Théodore Steeg – Minister of State
• Maurice Viollette – Minister of State
• Albert Sarraut – Minister of State in charge of North African Affairs
• Léo Lagrange – Under-Secretary of State for the Sports, the Leisure activities and the Physical Education,

Third ministry (16 December 1946 – 22 January 1947)[link]

• Léon Blum – President of the Provisional Government and Minister of Foreign Affairs
• André Le Troquer – Minister of National Defense
• Édouard Depreux – Minister of the Interior
• André Philip – Minister of Familial Economy and Finance
• Robert Lacoste – Minister of Industrial Production
• Daniel Mayer – Minister of Labour and Social Security
• Paul Ramadier – Minister of Justice
• Yves Tanguy – Minister of Public Utilities
• Marcel Edmond Naegelen – Minister of National Education
• Max Lejeune – Minister of Veterans and War Victims
• François Tanguy-Prigent – Minister of Agriculture
• Marius Moutet – Minister of Overseas France
• Jules Moch – Minister of Public Works, Transport, Reconstruction, and Town Planning
• Pierre Segelle – Minister of Public Health and Population
• Eugène Thomas – Minister of Posts
• Félix Gouin – Minister of Planning
• Guy Mollet – Minister of State
• Augustin Laurent – Minister of State

Changes:

• 23 December 1946 – Augustin Laurent succeeds Moutet as Minister of Overseas France.

Further reading[link]

• Auboin, Roger. "The Blum Experiment," International Affairs (1937) 16#4 pp. 499-517 in JSTOR
• Colton, Joel. Leon Blum: Humanist in Politics (1987), major scholarly biography excerpt and text search

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References[link]

External links[link]

• Leon Blum Archive at marxists.org
• Maison de Léon et Jeanne Blum
• Cercle Léon Blum (in French)

André Comte-Sponville (born 12 March 1952) is a French philosopher born in Paris, France. He studied in the École Normale Supérieure, and is aggregated in philosophy. He is a proponent of atheism and materialism, but in a particular form, because of his spiritualistic aim.

The most important aspect of his work is an overcoming of traditional materialistic atheism in a perspective of post-materialism, because he demonstrates a spiritualization of atheism. This is especially present in his essay L'Esprit de l'athéisme, published in 2006.

Bibliography[link]

• Traité du désespoir et de la béatitude (2 volumes, 1984-1988)
• Une éducation philosophique (1989)
• L'amour la solitude (1992)
• Petit Traité des Grandes Vertus Translation:(A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues or A Short Treatise on the Great Virtues) (1995), Translated into English by Catherine Temerson, Vintage, 2003, ISBN 0-09-943798-8
• Valeur et Vérité (Etudes cyniques) (1995),
• Impromptus (1996)
• La sagesse des Modernes, written with Luc Ferry
• L'être temps (1999)
• Présentation de la philosophie (2000)
• Le Bonheur, désespérément (2000)
• Le capitalisme est-il moral? (2004)
• L'Esprit de l'athéisme (2006) Translation: The Book of Atheist Spirituality, Bantam (2009) ISBN 978-0-553-81990-8
• Le miel et l'absinthe : Poésie et philosophie chez Lucrèce (2008)
• Le tragique de la décision médicale : La mort d'un enfant ou la naissance de l'absurde with Denis Devictor (2008)

Other works[link]

• "Le Bonheur - Visions Occidentale Et Chinoise", A three CD spoken word audio conference and discussion with Francois Julien, 2007.

External links[link]

• Conference Toutes les cultures se valent-elles, La Sorbonne 10 November 2007 (mindmap)
• Brief interview with André Comte-Sponville (video)
• The Book of Atheist Spirituality reviewed in The Guardian by Steven Poole 4 October 2008
• Comte-Sponville's website

Bust of Roger Salengro

Roger Henri Charles Salengro (born May 30, 1890 in Lille, died November 18, 1936 in Lille) was a French politician. He achieved fame as Minister of the Interior during the Popular Front government in 1936. He committed suicide a few months after taking office, after being hounded by a calumny campaign orchestrated by extreme right-wing newspapers.

Early years[link]

In 1909, Salengro enrolled at the University of Lille to study literature. The same year, he joined the French Section of the Workers' International, a socialist party, and founded a left-wing students' organisation.

In 1914, he signed up to join the French military for the First World War, despite having spoken out as a pacifist in previous years. Captured by the Germans on October 7, 1915, he became a prisoner of war. He refused to work in a German factory, and was incarcerated. His treatment was harsh; he weighed only 42 kg when he was freed after the war.

In 1918, he became a journalist, and resumed his involvement in politics. In 1919, he was elected municipal councillor in Lille, and general councillor of the Lille-Sud-Ouest canton.

In 1925, Salengro was elected mayor of Lille. He was re-elected in 1929 and in 1935. In 1928, he was elected Member of Parliament, then re-elected in 1932 and in 1936.

Member of Cabinet, and suicide[link]

The 1936 legislative election brought the Popular Front to power for the first time, led by Léon Blum. Blum appointed Salengro Minister of the Interior. The new government set about implementing social reforms, and one of its first achievements was the signing of the Matignon Agreements, which was publicly announced by Salengro.

The 1930s were marked by the activities of extreme right-wing groups violently opposed to the Popular Front. The government was opposed by right-wing extremist leagues such as the Croix-de-Feu, by the anti-Semitic, monarchist Action Française and by the fascist terrorist group La Cagoule. On July 14, France's national day, celebrated with military ceremonies, the Action Française's newspaper published a libelous article claiming that Salengro had not been captured by German forces in 1915 but had instead deserted. The claim was relayed by other far-right movements, and reprinted repeatedly in far-right newspapers such as Gringoire, sparking the "Salengro Affair". It was echoed in the National Assembly by far-right Members of Parliament such as Henri Becquart. A military commission which looked into the claims refuted them categorically, but the calumny persisted. No shred of evidence was ever put forward to support the claim that Salengro's service during the war had been anything other than honourable. On November 13, at Léon Blum's initiative, the Assembly voted to condemn the libelous campaign, by 427 votes out of 530.

During the night between November 17 and November 18, "exhausted and ill", Roger Salengro committed suicide at his home in Lille, where he lived alone. A million people attended his funeral on November 22.

On April 14, 2009, France 2 broadcast a television film about the "Salengro Affair", entitled L'Affaire Salengro. Roger Salengro was played by actor Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu.

References[link]

• Jacques Rouvière, L'Affaire Salengro ou Les bas-fonds de la politique, 1982 (ISBN 2-7144-1513-X)
• Roger Salengro's biography in brief on the website of the French Socialist Party