André Tardieu

Tardieu, André 

Born Sept. 22, 1876, in Paris; died Sept. 15, 1945, in Menton. French political and state figure.

After graduating from the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Tardieu worked as a journalist. From 1903 to 1914 he was the foreign affairs correspondent for the newspaper Le Temps. From 1914 to 1924 and from 1926 to 1936 he served in the Chamber of Deputies. In 1919–20, Tardieu helped draft the Treaty of Versailles and represented France at the Paris Peace Conference; during this period he was minister of public works, and in 1928–29 and again in 1930 he served as minister of the interior. In 1931–32 he was minister of agriculture and in 1932 minister of war; in 1934 he served as minister without portfolio. He was prime minister from November 1929 to February 1930 and from March to December 1930; from February to May 1932 he was both prime minister and foreign minister.

As a leader of the rightist circles of the French bourgeoisie, Tardieu pursued a reactionary domestic and foreign policy. During the 1930’s he advocated that executive power be strengthened and the rights of parliament limited. He wrote works on diplomatic history, including Peace (1921; Russian translation, 1943).