René Pleven

René Pleven, 1951

René Pleven (born April 15, 1901 in Rennes , † January 13, 1993 in Paris ) was a French politician of the 4th and 5th Republic . During the Second World War he was an important representative of the government-in-exile “Free France” . Between 1944 and 1973 he held various ministerial offices with interruptions. 1950–51 and 1951–52 he was Prime Minister of France. He was also party leader of the Union démocratique et socialiste de la Resistance (UDSR) from 1945 to 1953 .

biography

Family and education

René Pleven was born on April 15, 1901 as the son of an officer at the Saint-Cyr military school . After studying law and politics in Paris with a subsequent doctorate in law , Pleven was director of a British telephone company until 1939. In 1934 he married Anne Bompard.

Wartime

René Pleven (left) behind General de Gaulle (1943)

In 1940 he joined the Forces Françaises Libres founded by Charles de Gaulle and in 1941, after a stay in Africa under Major General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque , de Gaulle called him to London . As a member of the French national committee of the government-in-exile , he headed the economic commissariat until his return to France in 1944.

Political career in the Fourth Republic

In France he took over the post of colonial minister in 1944, in November of the same year he became finance minister and in 1945 also minister of economics under de Gaulle. Pleven joined the Union démocratique et socialiste de la Résistance (UDSR), a party of the political center, of which he was chairman until 1953. In the cabinets of Georges Bidault and Henri Queuille he was Minister of Defense from 1949-50 .

René Pleven (right) visiting US President Truman (front left), 1951

From 1950 to 1952 he was Prime Minister of France twice . Pleven was a major advocate of European integration . During his reign, the French Parliament ratified the Treaty of Paris, which established the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC / Montanunion). He also developed the so-called Pleven Plan for the establishment of a European Defense Community , under which German armed forces were to be incorporated into a European army. However, this failed due to the rejection by the French National Assembly.

From 1952 to 1954 Pleven was again Minister of Defense. During this time, the height of the Indochina War fell and France suffered a decisive defeat in the Battle of Điện Biên Ph im in May 1954 . In 1958, Pleven was appointed Foreign Minister by Pierre Pflimlin - the last of the Fourth Republic . Two weeks later, after de Gaulle took office as head of government, he gave this post to Maurice Couve de Murville .

Fifth Republic

Unlike his successor at the head of the UDSR, François Mitterrand , Pleven advocated de Gaulle's takeover and the new constitution of the Fifth Republic . He resigned from the UDSR and joined the Entente démocratique faction .

From 1958 to 1969 he was a member of the European Parliament , which at that time was not directly elected but delegated by the national parliament. From 1962 Pleven belonged to the center-right center démocratique , from 1967 to the faction Progrès et démocratie moderne . In 1969 he was appointed Minister of Justice of France by Jacques Chaban-Delmas . He resigned from this office in 1973 due to an election defeat. From 1974 to 1976 he was President of the Regional Council of Brittany .

Awards

• Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau
• Grand Officer of the Belgian Order of the Leopold
• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
• Commander of the French Order of Merit
• Ordre de la Liberation
• Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
• Grand Cross of Ouissam Alaouite
• Grand Cross of the Order of Dannebrog
• Grand Cross of the Lao Ordre du Million d'Éléphants

literature

• Christian Bougeard: René Pleven. Un Français libre en politique. Rennes: Presses Univ. de Rennes 1994.

Web links

Commons : René Pleven  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Irmgard Zündorf: René Pleven. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bruce Lambert: Rene Pleven, 91, Prime Minister Of France Twice in the early 1950s. In: New York Times , January 20, 1993.

predecessor	Office	successor
Georges Bidault Henri Queuille	Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic August 12, 1950 - February 28, 1951 August 12, 1951 - January 7, 1952	Henri Queuille Edgar Faure

predecessor	Office	successor
Christian Pineau	Foreign Minister of France May 14, 1958 - June 1, 1958	Maurice Couve de Murville
Aimé Lepercq	Finance Minister of France November 16, 1944 - January 26, 1946	André Philip
Paul Ramadier Georges Bidault	Defense Minister of France October 29, 1949 - July 12, 1950 March 8, 1952 - June 19, 1954	Jules Moch Marie-Pierre Kœnig