Laval, Pierre

Laval, Pierre (pyĕr läväl`), 1883–1945, French politician. Elected (1914) to the chamber of deputies as a Socialist, he held various cabinet posts and in 1926 became a senator as an Independent, moving away from his leftist affiliations. In 1931–32 and 1935–36 he was premier and foreign minister. With Sir Samuel Hoare (later Viscount Templewood), he proposed (Dec., 1935) a settlement to halt the Italian conquest of Ethiopia; the plan was seen as appeasement of Benito Mussolini, and his government collapsed. After the start of World War II and the fall of France in 1940, Laval reached new prominence. In the Vichy government under Marshal Pétain he became vice premier and foreign minister, but in Dec., 1940, he was dismissed and replaced by Admiral Darlan, apparently on suspicion that he was planning to overthrow Pétain. Entering the German-occupied part of France, Laval outspokenly advocated collaboration with Germany. Pétain reinstated Laval in Apr., 1942, and in November gave him dictatorial powers. Laval's government drafted laborers for German factories, cooperated in the persecution and deportation of Jews to death camps, authorized a French fascist militia, and instituted a rule of terror. After the Allied invasion of France he was taken (Aug., 1944) with the retreating Germans to Germany. He fled (May, 1945) to Spain, was expelled, and finally surrendered in Austria to American forces, which extradited him to France. Tried for treason, he was sentenced to death, and after an unsuccessful attempt at suicide he was executed. While the verdict may have been just, Laval's trial was conducted so poorly that it was denounced by many. Laval defended himself brilliantly and ascribed patriotic motives to his opportunist policies. His notes for his defense were edited by his daughter, Josée Laval, comtesse de Chambrun, and appeared in English in 1948.

Bibliography

See biography by Hubert Cole (1963); D. Thompson, Two Frenchmen: Pierre Laval and Charles de Gaulle (1951); G. Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968).

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Laval, Pierre

(born June 28, 1883, Châteldon, France—died Oct. 15, 1945, Paris) French politician. A member of the Chamber of Deputies (1914–19, 1924–27) and later the Senate (from 1927), he also held a number of cabinet posts, and, as France's premier (1931–32, 1935–36), he developed the widely denounced Hoare-Laval Pact. In 1940, as minister of state in Philippe Pétain's government (see Vichy France), he began negotiations with the Germans on his own initiative, which aroused suspicion. Pétain soon dismissed him, but in 1942 he returned as head of the government. He agreed to provide French labourers for German industries and announced in a speech that he desired a German victory. In 1945 he was tried and executed as a traitor to France.

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Laval, Pierre 

Born June 28, 1883, in Châteldon; died Oct. 15, 1945, in Paris. French statesman. A lawyer by profession.

Laval was a parliamentary deputy from 1914 to 1919 and from 1924 to 1927. From 1927 to 1940 he was a senator. He was a member of the government for several terms. From January 1931 to January 1932 and from June 1935 to January 1936 he was prime minister; from October 1934 to June 1935 he was minister of foreign affairs. In 1935 he concluded agreements with Italy (the Rome Pact) and Great Britain (the Hoare-Laval Agreement of 1935), which facilitated aggression by fascist Italy. He bowed to the pressure of public opinion and on May 2, 1935, signed the Franco-Soviet mutual aid pact prepared by L. Barthou; however, he stubbornly avoided ratifying and implementing the agreement. From the beginning of World War II he held a defeatist position, seeking the conclusion of a separate peace with fascist Germany. On June 23, 1940, after France signed the armistice, Laval assumed the post of state minister in the Pétain government. From July 12 to Dec. 13, 1940, he was vice-premier. He acted as an outright accomplice of the Hitlerites. From April 1942 to August 1944 he was prime minister of the collaborationist Vichy government. The moment France was liberated (1944), he fled the country. He was arrested in the American occupation zone of Austria and in August 1945 turned over to the French authorities. At a court trial he was sentenced to death as a traitor and was subsequently shot.

Z. S. BELOUSOVA