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 Templewood, Samuel John Gurney Hoare, 1st Viscount, 1880–1959, British statesman. He entered parliament as a Conservative in 1910, served (1922–24, 1924–29) as secretary of state for air,
..... Click the link for more information. ), he proposed (Dec., 1935) a settlement to halt the Italian conquest of Ethiopia; the plan was seen as appeasement of Benito Mussolini Mussolini, Benito (bānē`tō m
..... Click the link for more information. , 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 Vichy government was the regime set up there by Marshal Henri Pétain in July, 1940, subsequent to the Franco-German armistice of June 22. Its effective control extended only to unoccupied France and its colonies.
..... Click the link for more information. government under Marshal Pétain he became vice premier and foreign minister, but in Dec., 1940, he was dismissed and replaced by Admiral Darlan Darlan, Jean François (zhäN fräNswä` därläN`), 1881–1942, French admiral.
..... Click the link for more information. , 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).

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.