Pierre Laval

Pierre Jean Marie Laval (28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French political figure who held the office of Prime Minister on three separate occasions: twice under the Third Republic (1931–1932 and 1935–1936) and once under the collaborationist Vichy regime (1942–1944). Following World War II, he was prosecuted for collaborating with Nazi Germany and put to death for treason.

Laval began his career as a socialist. After becoming a lawyer in 1909, he gained a reputation for representing strikers, trade unionists, and left-wing activists against government prosecution. In 1914, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) and held to his pacifist beliefs throughout the First World War. Losing his seat in the 1919 election, he left the SFIO and became mayor of Aubervilliers.

He returned to the Chamber as an independent in 1924 and was elected to the Senate three years later. Over the years, he held several ministerial posts, including Public Works, Justice, and Labour. He first became prime minister in 1931, but his government collapsed after about a year.

Pre-war

In 1934, Laval joined Gaston Doumergue’s conservative cabinet as Minister of the Colonies and later as Foreign Minister. He became prime minister again in 1935. To contain Nazi Germany, he pursued policies friendly toward Italy and the Soviet Union, but his handling of the Abyssinia Crisis—widely seen as appeasing Benito Mussolini—forced his resignation in 1936.

After France fell to the German blitzkrieg, Laval, by then an open fascist sympathizer, took key roles in Philippe Pétain’s Vichy regime. He served as vice-president of the Council of Ministers from July to December 1940, then as head of government from April 1942 until August 1944.

Following the Liberation of France in 1944, the Germans imprisoned Laval. In April 1945, he fled to Spain but was quickly extradited to France, where authorities arrested him.

Trial and execution

He was convicted of plotting against state security and collaborating with the Nazis, and sentenced to death. After a failed suicide attempt, he was executed by firing squad in October 1945. A heavy smoker, Laval was known to consume about 80 cigarettes of dark tobacco each day.

Early life

Born on 28 June 1883 in Châteldon, near Vichy in northern Auvergne, Laval was the son of Gilbert Laval and Claudine Tournaire. His father ran a café that also served as a hostel and butcher shop, owned a vineyard and horses, and worked as a postman—making the family relatively comfortable compared to others in the village. The surname Laval was common in the region; the family branch was often called Laval-Tournaire, and his father went by “Baptiste Moulin.”

Laval attended the village school in Châteldon. At 15, he was sent to the lycée Saint-Louis in Paris, earning his baccalauréat in July 1901. He continued his studies in Bordeaux and Bayonne, where he learned Spanish and met Pierre Cathala. Returning to Lyon, he spent a year studying zoology and worked as a supervisor at various schools in Lyon, Saint-Étienne, and Autun to fund his education.

In 1903, while living in Saint-Étienne, Laval joined the socialist Central Revolutionary Committee. During this time, he became familiar with the left-wing ideas of Georges Sorel and Hubert Lagardelle. Over forty years later, in 1945, he remarked, “I was never a very orthodox socialist… My socialism was much more a socialism of the heart than a doctrinal socialism… I was much more interested in men, their jobs, their misfortunes and their conflicts than in the digressions of the great German pontiff.”

Called up for military service in 1903, he served in the ranks but was discharged due to varicose veins. In 1913, he stated that “barrack-based armies [were] incapable of the slightest effort, because they are badly-trained and, above all, badly commanded,” and he favored abolishing the army in favor of a citizens’ militia.

Lawyer

Abandoning natural science, Laval turned to law and became a “lawyer of the poor people” in 1909, closely associated with the syndicalists of the CGT. In the years before World War I, marked by labor unrest, he defended strikers, trade unionists, and left-wing agitators against government prosecution. His first major success was securing the acquittal of Gustave Manhès, a revolutionary trade unionist charged with possessing explosives and anarchist manuals.

In 1909, Laval married Jeanne Claussat, daughter of Socialist politician Dr. Joseph Claussat. Their only child, a daughter named Josée, was born in 1911. Josée later married René de Chambrun, whose uncle, Nicholas Longworth III, married Alice Roosevelt, daughter of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Though his wife came from a political family, she never participated in politics, and Laval was considered devoted to his family.

In 1911, he ran for the National Assembly in the Neuilly-Boulogne district. By staying in the race for the second round despite the presence of Radical candidate Alexandre Percin, he helped ensure the victory of conservative candidate Édouard Nortier.

In April 1914, as war fears mounted, Socialists and Radicals campaigned for peace under leaders Jean Jaurès and Joseph Caillaux. The Bloc des Gauches denounced the 1913 law that had extended compulsory military service.