Léon Blum (April 9, 1872 - March 30, 1950) was a man French socialist politics. He was one of the leaders of the French section of the Workers' International (SFIO), and president of the council, that is to say head of the French government, in 1936, 1938 and 1946. He marked history French politician for having refused the adhesion of the Socialists to the Third Communist International in 1920 and for having been the President of the Council of the Popular Front in 1936.
Léon Blum was born on April 9, 1872 in Paris. A pupil of the Henri-IV high school, he met the writer André Gide there and published his first poems at the age of 17 in a newspaper created with him. He was admitted to the École Normale Supérieure in 1890, where he was influenced by Lucien Herr. However, he lost interest in classes and was expelled from Normale Sup at the end of his first year, having failed the license exam (failure then resulted in expulsion from the School). He then hesitated between law and literature, and finally undertook both at the Sorbonne, aiming for a career as a civil servant. He was licensed in letters in 1891 and in law in 1894.
Léon Blum was accepted at his second presentation for the Conseil d'Etat competition at the age of 25 and appointed auditor to the Conseil d'Etat in December 1895. There he had a brilliant career of nearly 25 years, only interrupted by his functions of Chief of Staff of Marcel Sembat, Socialist Minister of Public Works in 1916 in the Cabinet Viviani.
His relationship with religion [
He respected the Jewish religion of his fathers, he felt Jewish and French because he thought that one did not preclude the other, and subsequently became involved in many Zionist movements after the war. For a large part of the Jewish population, Blum was a politician like the others. On the other hand, another part of this population took a dim view of its accession to power and feared in particular a rise in anti-Semitism.
Blum suffered from anti-Semitism very early on. He was already a victim of it as a literary critic. But anti-Semitism hit him harder the moment he was elected to the House and his speeches in Parliament began to achieve immense success. He was thus the target of numerous attacks in far-right daily newspapers. For example, Léon Daudet raged against this "ethnic and hermaphrodite hybrid" in L'Action française of September 2, 1933.
Blum, literary critic
Léon Blum, at the beginning of the 20th century, wrote reviews of books and plays. His columns given to the Revue Blanche, where he collaborated from 1892, established his reputation in the Parisian literary milieu. The director and teacher Jean-Laurent Cochet believes, for his part, that he is "the most intelligent critic of his time".
Here is, for example, the review of Le Veilleur de Nuit by Sacha Guitry, by Léon Blum in 1911 (date of creation of the piece):
“The Night Watchman is one of Sacha Guitry's best comedies. She has gaiety, wit, exuberance, emotion, irony. Lots of smarts. She has the casualness and daring assurance of youth. There is comedy, and even buffoonery, and a sudden ease in seeing things in their serious and almost melancholy aspect. Sacha Guitry has confidence, but he has no sass. He is never frightened, never stopped by the subjects he tackles, by the types he sees, by the words that come to mind. And this freedom is never affected or cynical; even if we have been able to mention the great name of Henry Becque. René Benjamin very nicely said of him that he was our Molière; I do not think I am exaggerating in recognizing myself that Sacha Guitry has genius. »
His entry into politics
Léon Blum really got into politics during the Dreyfus affair from 1894 to 1906, and it was thanks to his meeting with Jean Jaurès in 1897 that his militant action in the French section of the Workers' International (SFIO) really began. It was in the company of Jaurès that he participated in the founding of L'Humanité in 1904. It was also during the Dreyfus affair that Blum broke with Maurice Barrès, whom he had until then considered his master in literature.
Jaurès left Blum a great ideological legacy, but it was not so much his death as the start of the First World War that prompted Léon Blum to enter politics. It was indeed in August 1914 that he became Marcel Sembat's chief of staff, after being discharged due to myopia. He left Sembat's cabinet at the same time as him in 1917 and returned to work at the Council of State.
Blum continued to support the war effort and the policy of the Sacred Union. And even though the French socialist party was divided on the question of war, Blum remained convinced that it was the right option. However, by opposing the pacifists, he did not identify himself with the right wing of the party.
The legislative elections of 1919
It was only on the occasion of the legislative elections of 1919 (and even a little before) that Léon Blum entered the leading circle of the SFIO. At the April 1919 congress, Blum tried to preserve the gains of Jaurès and to instill in the socialists a progressive approach to revolution in the social, economic and political fields. It was thanks to him that the Socialist Party maintained an appearance of unity during these elections. However, the right prevailed. Blum was elected deputy for the Seine for the first time; he then resigned from the Council of State. He then became secretary, then president of the socialist parliamentary group. Deputy of the Seine from 1919 to 1928 and of Narbonne from 1929 to 1940,
The Split of the Congress of Tours
At the Congress of Tours, Blum refused to follow the majority in favor of joining the Third International. Remarkably lucid about the Bolshevik revolution and its anti-democratic character, he delivered a prescient speech on the future of the USSR, but he could not prevent the inevitable split.
Before the Popular Front
After the episode of the Congress of Tours, Blum did not rule out pre-electoral agreements with the Radicals, the SFIO moreover supporting the Radical government of Édouard Herriot in 1924 without participating in it. The SFIO experienced variable electoral fortunes during the 1920s, but did not suffer from the division with the Communist Party.
In the early 1930s, France entered an economic crisis. It was also at this time, after the defeat of the parliamentary right in 1932, that the extreme right took on new impetus. This was made up of various organizations, formed in the early twenties, which had many points in common, such as the denunciation of the parliamentary regime.
Among the socialists, two great tendencies were taking shape on the international level to fight against fascism. On the one hand a more right-wing fringe, embodied by the British, the Scandinavians, the Czechs and the Poles who wanted to adapt socialism to the middle classes; and on the other hand a left tendency embodied by Italy, Switzerland, France and Belgium which proposed “a revolutionary tactic of proletarian struggle for the conquest of power […]”. Blum also advocated emphasizing the common interests of the middle classes with the working classes.
* At the beginning of June 1934, contacts were established between the SFIO and the PCF, the negotiations advanced quickly thanks to mutual concessions (the PCF being pushed in certain cases by the IC). For the first time since the Tours split, they are bound by a mutual political commitment. The agreement reached on July 27 had no direct electoral purpose, but was action-oriented. During the cantonal elections of October 1934, the reciprocal withdrawal accepted for the first time made the two parties progress while the radicals regressed.
In 1935, especially at the time of the signing of the Franco-Soviet alliance, the tensions between the proponents of an anti-fascist war and those who attached paramount importance to peace intensified further.
The Popular Front
* It was the communist leader Maurice Thorez who, through articles in L'Humanité, called for the formation of a broad "Popular Front" (he quotes Eugen Fried, representative of the IC in France), after the former communist leader and future collaborationist Jacques Doriot had also proposed it two years earlier (the project had then been rejected by Moscow and Doriot expelled from the PCF). Thorez presented his project a few weeks later before the Chamber of Deputies. He also proposed to associate with this Popular Front the radicals, who were at the time linked to the right and the party best represented in the Chamber.
* The Popular Front agreements led to victory in the legislative elections of April 1936 and led to the first predominantly socialist government of the Third Republic. Blum became Chairman of the Council from June. He "took no particular responsibility to devote himself entirely to the direction of the government". The government was then composed only of socialists and radicals, the communists supporting it from the outside. This Popular Front government was also the first to include women, when at that time they could not yet vote in France.
The reasons for the victory of the Popular Front are multiple:economic crisis, rise of Adolf Hitler, financial scandals, instability of the government of the legislature of 1932, existence of extreme right-wing leagues, armed and more and more numerous, riots of the February 6, 1934. All these elements contributed to its emergence.
The results giving the Popular Front victory in the elections gave a lot of hope within the proletariat, which triggered a spontaneous general strike. Socialist Marceau Pivert urged Blum to take power immediately, based on this popular mobilization and without waiting for the official transfer of power. But Blum preferred to wait. These strikes nevertheless forced the employers to negotiate with the employees and their unions, and to grant paid holidays and a reduction in working hours.
Léon Blum was prevented from intervening openly by the opposition of the radicals and of the United Kingdom, France's main ally, not to mention the activism of the extreme right and part of the right, and had to choose, against the opinion of the Communists, non-intervention in the war in Spain. However, there was clandestine help, organized by Pierre Cot and Jules Moch. It can be noted that relations with Italy were much more difficult than with Germany.
Domestically, the Blum government managed to resolve the social crisis. But from the summer of 1936, he had to face various difficulties, among which the devaluation of the franc because of the monetary situation and financial policy in general, which transformed the concern of the right into resolute opposition.
* The calumnies of the extreme right targeted all the personalities of the Popular Front. They notably resulted in the suicide of the Minister of the Interior, Roger Salengro. The coming to power of Blum also triggered a wave of anti-Semitism on a very large scale. He was hated and insulted as rarely was the case in a French political life, however agitated. Charles Maurras wrote in L’Action française of May 15, 1936:“It is as a Jew that one must see, conceive, hear, fight and bring down the Blum. This last verb will seem a little strong with coffee:I hasten to add that it will not be necessary to physically kill Blum until the day when his policy has brought us the impious war he dreams against our Italian comrades in arms. That day, it is true, must not be missed. And Pierre Gaxotte in Candide of April 7, 1938:“He [Blum] embodies everything that revolts our blood and gives us goosebumps. He is evil, he is death. »
* In the French press, two very distinct camps were formed, on the one hand the supporters of the Popular Front (L'Humanité, Le Populaire, L'Œuvre, Friday, Marianne, etc.), on the other hand the opponents (L' Action française, L'Écho de Paris, L'Ami du peuple, Le Jour, Candide, Gringoire, I'm everywhere, etc.). Between these two positions, very few newspapers or weeklies played the card of neutrality. The press supporting the Popular Front was much weaker than the opposition press, and both contributed to the failure of the Popular Front government. It was in the foreign press, especially the Anglo-Saxon, that the most objective analyzes appeared.
Blum resigned in June 1937 and was replaced by a radical government. In March 1938, he formed his second government with the participation of Pierre Mendès France as Under-Secretary of State for the Treasury, but he was overthrown 3 weeks later by the Senate. The definitive defeat of the Popular Front took place in September-December 1938 with the coming to power of Édouard Daladier.
The results of the Popular Front are mixed, but this brief experience nevertheless allowed a significant number of advances in many areas, particularly in the social field:paid holidays (obtained following strikes, but they were already included in the profession faith of Jean-Baptiste Lebas, future Minister of Labour), forty-hour week, establishment of collective agreements, extension of schooling to 14 years, etc. The revival of armament spending, a priority even ahead of social spending, is also to his credit.
The Second World War
Blum condemned the PCF's attitude towards the Nazi-Soviet pact, an attitude which caused the departure of a certain number of Communists who turned to the SFIO, with the approval of Léon Blum, but against the advice of other socialists. . Léon Blum also alienated some of the socialists because of his non-pacifist positions.
During the vote of full powers to Marshal Pétain, Léon Blum was one of the eighty members of the National Assembly who voted against. At that time, part of the SFIO was already in England.
The Supreme Court of Justice was instituted by Pétain in July 1940 to seek out the political leaders of the war. A large number of politicians were convicted. Blum was indignant. He was arrested at the home of his friend Eugène Montel on September 15, 1940, interned in the Château de Chazeron, then in Bourassol. Its places of detention became the rallying point for socialist resistance fighters, such as Jean Pierre-Bloch, Félix Gouin or André Philip. The former head of government is conscientiously keeping abreast of the situation and urging his comrades to resist. He was brought before the Court of Riom but his defense, and that of Daladier, was so effective and so courageous that the trial was suspended sine die. Beyond Blum or Daladier, it was the presidents of the Council and the members of the Popular Front who were targeted. Vichy reproached them in particular for being responsible for the defeat by having prevented the rearmament of France by the implementation of social reforms. Blum brilliantly demonstrated that rearmament was never as intense as under the Popular Front, while Marshal Pétain, when he was Minister of War, had reduced the credits of the army.
Blum was transferred to the fort of Portalet, then delivered by Pierre Laval to the Nazis and deported in March 1943 to a small forest house in Buchenwald separated by a few hundred meters from the camp. His brother René Blum, founder of the Ballet de l'Opéra in Monte-Carlo, was assassinated in Auschwitz.
During his detention, he maintained an important correspondence and began to write a work of reflections which he finished in December 1944 and which was published after the war under the title On the Human Scale.
Post-war
On April 3, 1945, Léon Blum and his wife left and after a month of wanderings, they found themselves in a hotel in the Italian Tyrol, where, on May 4, they saw the first American soldiers. He resumed his daily articles in the newspaper Le Populaire.
He was head of the French delegation, then president of the constitutive conference of Unesco, after having negotiated the cancellation of France's war debts with the United States:the Blum-Byrnes agreements of May 1946, authorized by the same occasion the distribution of American films in French cinemas, introducing a component of the American way of life into French mass culture.
Léon Blum led the last provisional government before the establishment of the Fourth Republic, from December 1946 to January 1947.
He then retired to Jouy-en-Josas near Versailles where he died on March 30, 1950 of a heart attack at the age of 77. He remained political director of Le Populaire until his death. In particular, he denounced the danger that the RPF constituted for the parliamentary regime.