Pierre Laval

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Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval
In office
27 January 1931 – 20 February 1932
Preceded by Théodore Steeg
Succeeded by André Tardieu
In office
7 June 1935 – 24 January 1936
Preceded by Fernand Bouisson
Succeeded by Albert Sarraut
In office
11 July 1940 – 13 December 1940
Preceded by Philippe Pétain
Succeeded by Pierre Étienne Flandin
In office
18 April 1942 – 20 August 1944
Preceded by François Darlan
Succeeded by Charles de Gaulle
Born 28 June 1883(1883-06-28)
Died 15 October 1945 (aged 62)
Political party None
Religion Roman Catholic

Pierre Laval (28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician and statesman who led the Vichy government during World War II, and who was later executed after being tried and found guilty for crimes against the state. He was controversial enough, that over twelve biographies have been written about him. These plus his own Diary covered the spectrum from "Traitor" to "Patriot." As in the Japanese film Rashomon where the story is told by the widely differing accounts of many witnesses, this article includes quotations from many individuals who were personally close to Laval, references from several scholars (historians) and quotations from Laval's own diary.

Contents

[edit] Early life

As Laval never forgot, and never allowed his associates to forget, he was essentially a son of Auvergne. He was born, on 28th June, 1883, at Chåteldon in the northern part of that province. His father combined the jobs of cafe-proprietor, village butcher, and local postman, and was sufficiently well-to-do to own a few acres of vineyard and half a dozen horses. The Auvergnats are notoriously some of the most hardheaded and canny of French peasants; and when they have made money elsewhere, whether by selling coal and wood and chestnuts or by other more distinguished but less reputable means, they return to their native Auvergne to live again the life of a peasant. So did Pierre, when he had collected a fortune by various devices which shall be later discussed, buy the medieval castle which dominates Chåteldon and seek refuge there whenever his political fortunes made possible his prolonged absence from Paris.[1]

Young Pierre was first educated at the village school in Chateldon, then at the age if fifteen he was sent to a Paris lycée to take his baccalauréat. He did not complete it, and returning south to Lyon, he spent the next year reading a degree in zoology.[2] Laval joined the socialists in 1903, when he was living in Saint Etienne (62km southwest of Lyon). “I was never a very orthodox socialist," he explained in 1945…..By which I mean that I was never much of a Marxist. My socialism was much more a socialism of the heart than a doctrinal socialism.... I was much more interested in men, their jobs, their misfortunes and their conflicts than in the digressions of the great German pontiff.”[3]

Laval returned to Paris in 1907. He was called up for military service, and after serving in the ranks, he was discharged due to having varicose veins. In a speech in April 1913 he declared "Barrack-based armies are incapable of the slightest effort, because they are badly-trained and, above all, badly commanded." He favored the outright abolition of the army and its replacement by a citizens' militia.[4]

During this period Laval became familiar with the left-wing doctrines of George Sorel and Hubert Lagardelle. In 1909, choosing to forget his zoological qualifications, he turned to the law. Shortly after becoming a member of the Paris bar, he married the daughter of a Dr. Claussat and they set up a small home in Paris. Their only child, a daughter, was born in I911. Madame Laval, although coming from a very active political family, never meddled in politics herself. She belonged to a generation, she said, which believed that a woman's place was in the home. It was a happy home too, for Laval was devoted to his family, a fact, which even his enemies never denied.[5]

The years immediately before the First World War in France were characterized by widespread labor unrest, and Laval made his mark by defending strikers, trade-unionists, and left-wing agitators against attempts by the authorities to prosecute them. In a trade-union conference, Laval spoke forcefully, in his rather raucous voice, hammering the table with his heavy fist: "I am a comrade among comrades, a worker among workers. I am not one of those lawyers who are mindful of their bourgeois origin even when attempting to deny it. I am not one of those high-brow attorneys who engage in academic controversies and pose as intellectuals. I am proud to be what I am. A lawyer in the service of manual laborers who are my comrades, a worker like them, I am their brother. Comrades, I am a manual lawyer.”[6]

Laval was a talker, not a writer. The only book he ever wrote was his Diary, written in a prison-cell while awaiting the foregone verdict of his trial. It survived, because his devoted daughter, Josée de Chambrun was able to smuggle it out page by page.[7]

[edit] Career during the Third Republic

Further information: French Third Republic

In 1903 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the SFIO (Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière - the French socialist party). He was re-elected three times. Laval did not serve in World War I. During this period, his politics moved towards the political right. He was defeated in the first post-war election in 1919. March 6, 1923, he was elected mayor of Aubervilliers, a town in the northern suburbs of Paris, and left the SFIO. Despite this, his power in national affairs continued to increase. In 1925, he first served in ministerial office, as Minister of Transportation under Painlevé. In 1926 he was Minister of Justice under Briand. He was elected to the Senate in 1927, and again in 1936.

Laval held no offices in 1927-1929, but he was a prominent figure in most of the right-wing governments formed in 1930-1932 and 1934-1936. Laval's greatest achievement in this period was in supervising the passage of the social insurance bill through parliament. Originally passed by the Chamber of Deputies in 1928, it needed extensive amendment if it was to be successfully implemented and the prime minister, Andre Tardieu, had promised that it would be on the statute book by 1 July 1930. The bill was one of immense complexity and Laval had to reconcile the frequently divergent views of Chamber and Senate. "Had it not been for Laval's unwearying patience," Laval's associate Tissier wrote, "an agreement would never have been achieved," [8] When the bill had passed its final stages, Tardieu paid a glowing tribute to his minister of labor, whom he described as "displaying at every moment of the discussion as much tenacity as restraint and ingenuity."[9]

He was Prime Minister from 27 January 1931 to 6 February 1932, and was named Time's 1931 Man of the Year.[10]

The second Cartel des gauches (Left-Wing Cartel) was driven from power by the riots of 6 February 1934, staged by fascist, monarchist, and other far-right groups. (These groups had contacts with some conservative politicians, among whom were Laval and Philippe Pétain.) Laval became Minister of Colonies in the new right-wing Doumergue government. In October, Foreign Minister Barthou was assassinated; Laval succeeded him, holding that office until 1936.

At this time, Laval was opposed to Germany, the "hereditary enemy" of France. He pursued anti-German alliances with Mussolini's Italy and Stalin's USSR. He met with Mussolini in Rome, and they signed the Franco–Italian Agreement of 1935 on 4 January. The agreement ceded parts of French Somaliland to Italy and allowed Italy a free hand in the Abyssinia, in exchange for support against any German aggression.[11] In April 1935, Laval persuaded Italy and Great Britain to join France in the Stresa Front against German ambitions in Austria.

In June 1935, he became Prime Minister as well.

Also in 1935, Laval's daughter Josée Marie married René de Chambrun, son of Count Aldebert de Chambrun. (De Chambrun was a descendant of the Marquis de Lafayette. René's mother, Clara Longworth de Chambrun, was the sister of Theodore Roosevelt's son-in-law.)

In October 1935, Laval and British foreign minister Hoare proposed a "realpolitik" solution to the Abyssinia crisis. When leaked to the media in December, the Hoare-Laval Pact was widely denounced as appeasement to Mussolini. Laval was forced to resign on 22 January 1936, and was driven completely out of ministerial politics.

During the years 1927-30 Laval began to accumulate the sizable personal fortune which later gave rise to the unjustified charge that he had used his political position to line his own pockets. There was, it is true, a link between wealth and political power in Laval's mind, but it was not the one his enemies alleged. “I have always thought,” he wrote to the examining magistrate on 11 September 1945, “that a soundly-based material independence, if not indispensable, gives those statesmen who possess it a much greater political independence.” Until 1927 his principal source of income had been his fees as a lawyer and in that year they totaled 113,350 francs, according to his income tax returns. Between August 1927 and June 1930, however, he undertook large-scale investments in various enterprises, totaling 51 million francs. Not all this money was his own by any means. It came from a group of financiers who enjoyed the backing of an investment trust, the Union Syndicale et Financiére and two banks, the Comptoir Lyon Allemand and the Banque Nationale de Crédit.[12]

Two of the investments which Laval and his backers acquired were provincial newspapers, Le Moniteur de Puy-de-Dome and its associated printing works at Clermont-Ferrand in his native Auvergne, and the Lyon Républicain. The circulation of the Moniteur stood at 27,000 in 1926 before Laval took it over. By 1933, it had more than doubled to 58,250. Thereafter it fell away again and never surpassed its earlier peak. Profits varied, but over the seventeen years of his control, Laval obtained some 39 million francs in income from the paper and the printing works combined, and the renewed plant was valued at 50 million francs, which led the high court expert to say with some justification that it had been “an excellent affair for him."[13]

The victory of the Popular Front in 1936 meant that Laval had a left-wing government as a target for his media.

[edit] Under Vichy France

Further information: Vichy France

After the defeat of France in June 1940, Laval's papers and radio stations played a prominent part in forcing the resignations of the Reynaud government and then supporting the new Vichy regime of Philippe Pétain. On 12 July 1940, Laval became Vice-Premier (Pétain had no Prime Minister at this time).

From July to December 1940, Laval's policy was active collaboration with Nazi Germany. He named Fernand de Brinon, a Nazi sympathizer, to lead the surrender negotiations with Germany. He met Adolf Hitler in Montoire on 22 October 1940, and proposed an alliance between France and Germany. Two days later, he arranged the meeting between Pétain and Hitler in Montoire, where collaboration was solidified. Laval also delivered the Belgian Central Bank's gold to Germany, which Belgium had sent to France for protection. He ceded France's stake in the copper mines of Bor in Yugoslavia, which were the largest mines in Europe producing this strategic metal. He also proposed the return of the government to Paris, where it would be under more surveillance from the Germans.[citation needed]

In November 1940, at a meeting with Hermann Göring, Laval suggested a military alliance with Germany. He made plans for a joint reconquest of Chad, whose governor, Félix Eboué, had joined Free France. Some members of the government found him too radical, while Pétain worried about Laval's unpopularity and ambition. On 13 December 1940, Pétain removed Laval, replacing him with Flandin and then Darlan. Laval was briefly arrested, but Otto Abetz, the Reich's ambassador in France, had him quickly freed and moved to Paris, where he lived under German protection and continued his political activity.

On 27 August 1941, several top Vichyites including Laval attended a review of the Légion des Volontaires Français (LVF), a collaborationist militia. Paul Collette, a disgruntled ex-member of the Croix-de-Feu, attacked the reviewing stand; he shot and wounded Laval (and also Marcel Déat, another prominent collaborationist). Laval soon recovered from the injury.

Pétain recalled Laval to the Vichy government on 18 April 1942. This time he became Prime Minister and succeeded Darlan as the leading figure in the regime after Pétain himself. Laval was largely blamed for the increase in anti-Jewish activities and the decision to send French workers to Germany through la relève and later the Service du Travail Obligatoire.[citation needed] After the Allied invasion of France, the government moved from Vichy to Belfort and then, in August 1944, to Sigmaringen in Germany. (Laval appears as a character in Louis Ferdinand Céline's novel Castle to Castle, which is set largely at Sigmaringen.) In May 1945 Laval fled to Spain, but he was deported from there, ending up in Austria, where he was handed over to Allied forces.

[edit] Trial and execution

General Charles de Gaulle and the French people required immediate show-trials in order to concentrate collective feelings of guilt onto the few. Two trials were to be held. Although it had its faults, the trial of Marshal Philippe Petain permitted the presentation and examination of a vast amount of pertinent material. Laval's own trial illustrated nothing but the inadequacies of the judicial system and the poisonous political atmosphere of the purge-trial era at that time.[14]

Laval firmly believed that, if he could only secure a fair hearing, he would be able to convince his fellow-countrymen that he had been acting in their best interests all along. “Father-in-law wants a big trial which will illuminate everything,” Rene de Chambrun told Laval's lawyers: “If he is given time to prepare his defense, if he is allowed to speak, to call witnesses and to obtain from abroad the information and documents which he needs, he will confound his accusers."[15]

Laval more than suspected what would really happen. “Do you want me to tell you the set-up?” he asked one of his lawyers on August 4th. “There will be no pre-trial hearings and no trial. I will be condemned – and got rid of – before the elections.”[16]

What took place was almost as he predicted.

Laval’s trial began at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 4, 1945. He was charged with plotting against the security of the state and intelligence (collaboration) with the enemy. He had three defense lawyers (Jaques Baraduc, Albert Naud, and Yves-Frédéric Jaffré) who declined to be in court to hear the reading of the formal charges because “We fear that the haste which has been employed to open the hearings is inspired, not by judicial preoccupations, but motivated by political considerations.” In lieu of attending the hearing they sent letters stating the shortcomings and asked to be discharged from the task of defending Laval.[17]

Their letters had no effect --- the court carried on without them.

The president of the court, Pierre Mongibeaux announced that the trial must be completed before the general election --- scheduled for October 21st.[18]

The trial proceeded with the tone being set with Mongibeaux and Mornet, the public prosecutor, unable to control constant outbursts from the jury. These occurred as increasingly heated exchanges between Mongibeaux and Laval became louder and louder.

On the third day, Laval’s three lawyers were with him as the President of the Bar Association had advised them to resume their duties.[19]

To appreciate the “kangaroo court” nature of the trial it is necessary to refer to the published stenographic report:

October 6th......

Mongibeaux drew laughter from the audience when, during the course of one of his interrogations, he remarked that he did not want to assume the air of a prosecutor.

LAVAL.... Monsieur le Président, you supply the questions and the answers at one and the same time. Very well, I think it would be better if we left it at that as far as the serenity and majesty of your justice are concerned.

MONGIBEAUX: In your position, do you think you are assured of impunity?

LAVAL: I do not think I am assured of impunity, but there is one thing which is above us all, above you and above me, and that is truth and the justice of which you ought to be the embodiment.

BEDIN (a member of the jury): Justice will be done!

Another member of the jury: Yes, justice will be done!

MONGTBEAUX: Someone will have the last word: the high court.

LAVAL: You keep it!

MONGIBEAUX: You do not wish to answer any more of my questions?

LAVAL: No.

MONGIBEAUX: Consider carefully the attitude you are adopting. You do not wish to answer any more of my questions?

LAVAL: No, Monsieur le President, not in view of your aggressive attitude and the way in which you question me. You supply the questions and the answers.

MONGIBEAUX: The hearing is adjourned. Remove the accused!

Members of the jury (to Laval): You're the trouble-maker! Swine! Twelve bullets! He hasn't changed!

LAVAL: No, and I shan't change now.

MONGTBEAUX: (standing by his chair): Please! We are not at a public meeting!

LAVAL: The jury - before judging me - it's fantastic!

A member of the jury: You've already been judged, and France has judged you too![20]


After the adjournment, Mongibeaux announced that the part of the interrogatoire dealing with the charge of plotting against the security of the state was concluded and that he now proposed to deal with the charge of intelligence (collaboration) with the enemy. “Monsieur le Président," Laval replied, "the insulting way in which you questioned me earlier and the demonstrations in which some members of the jury indulged show me that I may be the victim of a judicial crime. I do not want to be an accomplice; I prefer to remain silent." Mongibeaux thereupon called the first of the prosecution witnesses, but they had not expected to give evidence so soon and none were present. Mongibeaux therefore adjourned the hearing for the second time so that they could be located. When the court reassembled half an hour later, Laval was no longer in his place.[21]

Although Pierre-Henri Teitgen, the minister of justice in de Gaulle’s cabinet, personally appealed to Laval’s lawyers to have him attend the hearings, he declined to do so. Teitgen freely confirmed the scandalous conduct of Mongibeaux and Mornet, professing he was unable to do anything to curb them. The trial continued without the accused, ending with Laval being sentenced to death. His lawyers were turned down, when they requested a re-trial.[22]

The execution was fixed for the morning of Monday, October 15th. It was a hideous affair and, in its way, a fitting sequel to the travesty of justice that had been his trial. For Laval attempted to cheat the firing squad by taking poison from a phial, which had been stitched inside the lining of his jacket since the war years. He did not intend, he explained in a suicide note, that French soldiers should become accomplices in a judicial crime. If the poison had not been so old, it would undoubtedly have worked, but, as it was, repeated stomach-pumpings revived him. At twenty-three minutes past noon in one of the courtyards at Fresnes, those present witnessed the frightful spectacle of the condemned man, tormented by an agonizing thirst but unable to keep down any of the water proffered him.[23]

It was only a few steps to the knoll, to the execution post. He took these steps deliberately, neither slowly nor quickly, and leaned against the post. "Don't go too far off," he said to his lawyers. "I would like to look at you as I die."

Everything happened very quickly.

"Aim!"

"Vive la France!" shouted Laval.

"Fire!"

Laval slid to his knees, his face to the ground.

The sergeant major fired the coup de grace.

The whole prison shouted, "Murderers!" and "Long live Laval!"[24]

He “died bravely,” de Gaulle remarked in his memoirs.[25] But it was his widow who made the most fitting comment upon his execution. “It is not the French way to try a man without letting him speak,” she told an English newspaper, “That's the way he always fought against - the German way.”[26]

[edit] Parliamentary offices

  • 10/05/1914 - 07/12/1919 : Deputy of the Seine department
  • 11/05/1924 - 17/02/1927 : Deputy of the Seine - Not registered in any parliamentary group
  • Senator from 1927 to 1936 and from 1936 to 1944[27]

[edit] Laval's First Government, 27 January 1931 - 14 January 1932

Laval portrayed in Frank Capra documentary film Divide and Conquer (1943)
Laval portrayed in Frank Capra documentary film Divide and Conquer (1943)

[edit] Laval's Second Government, 14 January - 20 February 1932

[edit] Laval's Third Ministry, 7 June 1935 - 24 January 1936

[edit] Changes

  • 17 June 1935 - Mario Roustan succeeds Marcombes (d. 13 June) as Minister of National Education. William Bertrand succeeds Roustan as Minister of Merchant Marine.

[edit] Laval's Fourth Ministry, 18 April 1942 - 20 August 1944

[edit] Changes

  • 11 September 1942 - Max Bonnafous succeeds Le Roy Ladurie as Minister of Agriculture, remaining also Minister of Supply
  • 18 November 1942 - Jean-Charles Abrial succeeds Auphan as Minister of Marine. Jean Bichelonne succeeds Gibrat as Minister of Communication, remaining also Minister of Industrial Production.
  • 26 March 1943 - Maurice Gabolde succeeds Barthélemy as Minister of Justice. Henri Bléhaut succeeds Abrial as Minister of Marine and Brévié as Minister of Colonies.
  • 21 November 1943 - Jean Bichelonne succeeds Lagardelle as Minister of Labour, remaining also Minister of Industrial Production and Communication.
  • 31 December 1943 - Minister of State Lucien Romier resigns from the government.
  • 6 January 1944 - Pierre Cathala succeeds Bonnafous as Minister of Agriculture and Supply, remaining also Minister of Finance and National Economy.
  • 3 March 1944 - The office of Minister of Supply is abolished. Pierre Cathala remains Minister of Finance, National Economy, and Agriculture.
  • 16 March 1944 - Marcel Déat succeeds Bichelonne as Minister of Labour and National Solidarity. Bichelonne remains Minister of Industrial Production and Communication.

[edit] Notes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
  1. ^ Thompson, David, Two Frenchman, Pierre Laval and Charles de Gaulle, London: The Cresset Press, 1951, p.12.
  2. ^ Warner, Geoffery, Pierre Laval and the eclipse of France, New York: The Macmillian Company, 1968, p.3.
  3. ^ Jaffré, Yves-Frédéric, Les Derniers Propos de Pierre Laval, Paris: Andre Bonne, 1953, p.55.
  4. ^ Privat, Maurice, Pierre Laval, Paris: Editions Les Documents secrets, 1931, pp. 67-8.
  5. ^ Warner, p.4
  6. ^ Torrés, Henry, Pierre Laval (Translated by Norbert Guterman), New York: Oxford University Press, 1941, pp. 17-20. Torrés was a close associate of Laval. "His entire physique, his filthy hands, his unkempt mustache, his disheveled hair, one lock of which was always falling down over his forehead, his powerful shoulders and careless dress, strkingly supported this profession. Even his white tie inspired confidence" pp. 18-19.
  7. ^ Laval, Pierre, The Diary of Pierre Laval (With a Preface by his daughter, Josée Laval), New York: Scribner's Sons, 1948.
  8. ^ Tissier, Pierre, I worked with Laval, London: Harrap, 1942, p. 48.
  9. ^ Bonnefous, Georges and Edouard: Histoire Politque de la Troisiéme République, Vol. V, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962, pp. 28-29.
  10. ^ Original TIME article
  11. ^ André Larané, 4 janvier 1935: Laval rencontre Mussolini à Rome, Hérodote (French)
  12. ^ Warner, Geoffery, Pierre Laval and the eclipse of France, New York: The Macmillian Company, 1968, pp. 19-20.
  13. ^ Ibid. p. 20
  14. ^ Warner, Geoffery, Pierre Laval and the eclipse of France, New York: The Macmillian Company, 1968, p.408
  15. ^ Naud, Albert, Pourquoi je n'ai pas défendu Pierre Laval, Paris: Fayard 1948
  16. ^ Baraduc, Jaques, Dans la Cellule de Pierre Laval, Paris: Editions Self, 1948, p. 31.
  17. ^ Naud, p.249; Baraduc, p.143; Jaffré, Yves-Frédéric, Les Derniers Propos de Pierre Laval, Paris: Andre Bonne, 1953, p.263.
  18. ^ Laval Parle, Notes et Memoires Rediges par Pierre Laval dans sa cellule, avec une preface de sa fille et de Nombreu Documents Inedits, Constant Bourquin (Editor) pp. 13-15
  19. ^ Le Procés Laval: Compte rendu sténographique, Maurice Garçon (Editor), Paris: Albin Michel, 1946, pp. 91.
  20. ^ Ibid. pp. 205-206.
  21. ^ Ibid. pp. 207-209.
  22. ^ Naud, pp. 249-57; Baraduc, pp. 143-6; Jaffré, pp. 263-7.
  23. ^ Warner. p. 415-6. For detailed accounts of Laval’s execution, see Naud, pp. 276-84; Baraduc, pp. 188-200; Jaffré, pp. 308-18.
  24. ^ Chambrun, René de, Mission and Betrayal 1949-1945, London: André Deutch, 1993, p. 134.
  25. ^ Gaulle, General Charles de, Mémoires de Guerre, Vol. III, p. 251.
  26. ^ Evening Standard, 16 October 1945 (cover page).
  27. ^ Biographical notice of Laval on the French National Assembly's website (French)

[edit] References

  • Man of the Year profile, Jan. 4, 1932
  • [1] Time Magazine Cover Story article, April 27, 1942
  • "Devil's Advocate", Time Magazine (1945-10-15). Retrieved on 2008-08-10.  on the Laval treason trial, Oct. 15, 1945
  • ""What Is Honor?"", Time Magazine (1945-08-13). Retrieved on 2008-08-10.  on Laval's testimony in Petain's trial, Aug. 13, 1945
  • Laval, P. The Unpublished Diary of Pierre Laval, Falcon Press Ltd. London, 1948.
  • http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Laval
  • Baraduc, Jaques, Dans la Cellule de Pierre Laval, Paris: Editions Self, 1948
  • Bonnefous, Georges and Edouard: Histoire Politque de la Troisiéme République, Vol. V, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962
  • Bois, Elie de, Truth on the Tragedy of France, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1941
  • Chambrun, René de, Pierre Laval, Traitor or Patriot? (Translated by Elly Stein), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984
  • Chambrun, René de, Mission and Betrayal 1949-1945, London: André Deutch Ltd., 1993
  • Cole, Hubert, Laval, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1963
  • Gaulle, General Charles de, Mémoires de Guerre, Vol. III, Le Salut 1944-46, Paris: Plon, 1959
  • Jaffré, Yves-Frédéric, Les Derniers Propos de Pierre Laval, Paris: Andre Bonne, 1953
  • Kupferman, Fred, Laval 1883-1945, Paris: Flammarion, 1988
  • Laval Parle, Notes et Memoires Rediges par Pierre Laval dans sa cellule, avec une preface de sa fille et de Nombreu Documents Inédits, Constant Bourquin (Editor), Geneva: Sditions du Cheval Ailé, 1947
  • Laval, Pierre, The Diary of Pierre Laval (With a Preface by his daughter, Josée Laval), New York: Scribner's Sons, 1948
  • Le Procés Laval: Compte rendu sténographique, Maurice Garçon (Editor), Paris: Albin Michel, 1946
  • Naud, Albert, Pourquoi je n'ai pas défendu Pierre Laval, Paris: Fayard 1948
  • Pertinax, The Gravediggers of France, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1944
  • Privat, Maurice, Pierre Laval, Paris: Editions Les Documents secrets, 1931
  • Thompson, David, Two Frenchman, Pierre Laval and Charles de Gaulle, London: The Cresset Press, 1951
  • Tissier, Pierre, I worked with Laval, London: George Harrap & Co, 1942
  • Torrés, Henry, Pierre Laval (Translated by Norbert Guterman), New York: Oxford University Press, 1941
  • Warner, Geoffery, Pierre Laval and the eclipse of France, New York: The Macmillian Company, 1968
  • Weygand, General Maxime, Mémoirs, Vol. III, Paris: Flammarion, 1950
  • The London Evening Standard, 16 October 1945 (cover page).


Preceded by
Victor Peytral		 Minister of Transportation
1925		 Succeeded by
Anatole de Monzie
Preceded by
René Renoult		 Minister of Justice
1926		 Succeeded by
Maurice Colrat
Preceded by
Louis Loucheur		 Minister of Labour and Social Security Provisions
1930		 Succeeded by
Édouard Grinda
Preceded by
Théodore Steeg		 President of the Council
1931–1932		 Succeeded by
André Tardieu
Preceded by
Georges Leygues		 Minister of the Interior
1931–1932		 Succeeded by
Pierre Cathala
Preceded by
Aristide Briand		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
1932		 Succeeded by
André Tardieu
Preceded by
Adolphe Landry		 Minister of Labour and Social Security Provisions
1932		 Succeeded by
Albert Dalimier
Preceded by
Henry de Jouvenel		 Minister of Colonies
1934		 Succeeded by
Louis Rollin
Preceded by
Louis Barthou		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
1934–1936		 Succeeded by
Pierre Étienne Flandin
Preceded by
Fernand Bouisson		 President of the Council
1935–1936		 Succeeded by
Albert Sarraut
Preceded by
Philippe Pétain		 Vice President of the Council
1940		 Succeeded by
—
Preceded by
Paul Baudoin		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
1940		 Succeeded by
Pierre Étienne Flandin
Preceded by
Philippe Pétain		 President of the Council
1942–1944		 Succeeded by
Charles de Gaulle
Preceded by
François Darlan		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
1942–1944		 Succeeded by
Georges Bidault
Preceded by
Pierre Pucheu		 Minister of the Interior
1942–1944		 Succeeded by
Adrien Tixier
Preceded by
Paul Marion		 Minister of Information
1942–1944		 Succeeded by
Pierre-Henri Teitgen
v • d • e
Time Persons of the Year
 
1927–1950

Charles Lindbergh (1927) · Walter Chrysler (1928) · Owen D. Young (1929) · Mahatma Gandhi (1930) · Pierre Laval (1931) · Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932) · Hugh Samuel Johnson (1933) · Franklin D. Roosevelt (1934) · Haile Selassie I (1935) · Wallis Simpson (1936) · Chiang Kai-shek / Soong May-ling (1937) · Adolf Hitler (1938) · Joseph Stalin (1939) · Winston Churchill (1940) · Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941) · Joseph Stalin (1942) · George Marshall (1943) · Dwight D. Eisenhower (1944) · Harry S. Truman (1945) · James F. Byrnes (1946) · George Marshall (1947) · Harry S. Truman (1948) · Winston Churchill (1949) · The American Fighting-Man (1950)
Persondata
NAME Laval, Pierre
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION French politician
DATE OF BIRTH 28 June 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Châteldon, Puy-de-Dôme, France
DATE OF DEATH 15 October 1945
PLACE OF DEATH Paris, France
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Laval"
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