Born in Paris in 1872, Léon Blum came from a family of Jewish merchants. In 1890, he joined the École Normale Supérieure and began a career as a literary critic. Very marked by the Dreyfus affair, he defended Zola in particular. A member of the Socialist Party from 1902, he refused to join the Communist International at the Congress of Tours in 1920, and then headed the SFIO.
In the spring of 1936, the Popular Front, a coalition of left-wing parties, won the legislative elections. Léon Blum forms a government which sets up paid holidays, the 40-hour week, freedom of association and the first aid to the unemployed. He advocated non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War, and stepped up France's arming effort in a period of tension. Unable to ensure unity, the experience of the Popular Front ended in 1937, after the resignation of Léon Blum.
Arrested in 1940 by the Vichy regime and accused at the Riom trial (1942), he was deported in 1943 to the Buchenwald camp. Again head of government between 1946 and 1947, he continued his work as a theorist of socialism. He died of a heart attack on March 30, 1950.
1872 - 1950
Status
Politician