Chautemps, Camille (kämē`yə shōtäN`), 1885–1963, French politician. A Radical Socialist leader, he was premier in 1930 and in 1933–34, when the Stavisky Affair Stavisky Affair (stävēskē`), financial and political scandal that shook France in 1934.
..... Click the link for more information. (in which he was not directly implicated) caused his resignation. A member of the first Popular Front cabinet of Socialists and Communists (1936–37) under Léon Blum, he headed the second, less radical, Popular Front cabinet (1937–38). Vice premier of the Vichy government, Chautemps came (1940) to the United States on a mission and did not return to France. He was subsequently expelled from the Radical party. In 1947 he was tried and convicted in absentia for collaborating with the Vichy regime. In 1954 his sentence was voided by the statute of limitations.

Chautemps, Camille

(born Feb. 1, 1885, Paris, France—died July 1, 1963, Washington, D.C., U.S.) French politician. A Radical Socialist, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1919. He served in several cabinet posts and as premier of France in 1930, 1933–34, and 1937–38. As a cabinet member in 1940, he was among the first to suggest the surrender of France to Nazi Germany. He held a ministry in the Vichy government (see Vichy France) but broke with Philippe Petain's government after arriving in the U.S. on an official mission. He lived in the U.S. for much of the rest of his life. After World War II a French court convicted him in absentia for collaborating with the enemy.