Paul Reynaud

See also French State

Paul Reynaud (5 October 1878 – 21 September 1966) was a lawyer and politician in the French Third Republic prominent in the two decades between the two world wars, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and opposition to National Socialist Germany. He was also Vice-president of the Democratic Republican Alliance centre-right party.

Politics

Reynaud was, in 1934-5, a Parliamentary deputy for the 2nd Arrondissement of Paris, described as an economic "devaluationist". During the parliamentary debates following the coming to power in Germany of the National Socialists Reynard was a firm advocate of France's 'encirclement' of Germany policy, the so-called cordon sanitaire, and insisting France had to honour all the treaties and alliances they had made since 1919 (notably Czechoslovakia, Poland et al). He had opposed the Munich Agreement. During the Chamber debate in early September 1938 Pierre-Étienne Flandin had argued for a rapprochement with Germany, and said:

Chamberlain knows that the time has come to act [over Czechoslovakia], because the Versailles Treaty is on its deathbed......far be it for me to suggest that we should repudiate our [treaty] obligations; but we ought to make sure whether we are able to observe them.

Flandin was then violently attacked by Reynaud who quipped that he, Reynaud, now represented the "War Party". Camille Chautemps, then the Premier, also attacked the so-called "defeatists". However, Chautemps subsequently changed his position. In June 1940 he was one of those who supported and voted for the Armistice.

In August 1938 Georges Mandel told Georges Bonnet, Minister of Foreign Affairs, "there has got to be a [European] war, and the sooner the better." When Premier Daladier hesitated to declare war on Germany after Poland was invaded (1 Sept 1939), "Mandel, Reynaud and their friends in the 'war party' brought formidable pressure to bear upon him." The former Minister of Justice (1934) Henry Lémery relates: "at the end of February or the beginning of March 1940 Maurice de Rothschild invited me out to lunch outside Paris. He told me Mandel would call and collect me. Reynard was present. Mandel said we needed to waste no time in replacing Daladier with Reynard."

War

Following Britain and France's declaration of war against Germany on 3 September 1939, creating World War II, Reynaud became the penultimate Premier of the French Third Republic following the resignation of Edouard Daladier at the end of March 1940. Reynaud was therefore Premier during the subsequent German defeat of France in May and June 1940 when he became delusional about the serious state of affairs and refused to support an armistice with Germany. He entertained fantasies about the entire government, including the Chamber and the Senate, (thousands of people), decamping to French North Africa, or forming a ("indefensible") 'redoubt' in Brittany with the obvious intention that the government or at least the Cabinet could then flee to England if things didn't work out. The USA told Reynard that they were not going to join the war and "sent their best wishes". Britain was slowly pulling out (by June 16th this was complete).. General Weygand told Reynard that the government should not leave France.

The French army was shattered and torn to pieces and its commanders were urging the government to sue for an honourable armistice. On June 15th Édouard Herriot, Leader of the Chamber of Deputies, announced that there was nothing to be gained at this point in time by calling a meeting of the Chamber. Churchill had told Reynard, at Tours, that he 'understood the painful need to seek an armistice'. There were thirteen members of the Government who wanted to ask for an armistice and only six who did not. At 11 a.m. on June 16th the Cabinet met. They heard firstly from the leaders of the Chamber and the Senate. President Albert Lebrun then took the Chair. Marshall Petain announced he wished to resign from the government due to its chronic indecisions. This was refused by the President. The Cabinet retired and resumed at 5.15 p.m. when Reynaud suddenly grasped that most of the government were against him and the way he had handled the crisis. Cabinet retired at 7.30 p.m. and resumed again at 10 p.m. when Reynard officially announced his resignation, after only two and a half months in office. President Lebrun said later it was "a clear enough indication of the wishes of the majority" of the Cabinet. (One of the last actions of Reynard's Cabinet was to despatch France's gold reserves to Dakar on two warships.) Reynard recommended to President Lebrun that Marshal Philippe Pétain be invited to form a new Cabinet and then left the meeting followed by Georges Mandel, Louis Marin, Rio and César Campinchi, whose departures were also taken as their resignations.

After unsuccessfully attempting to flee France, he was arrested by the French authorities. Later, in 1942, he was surrendered upon demand to German custody and imprisoned firstly in Germany and then in Austria, until the 1945 Allied invasion of that country when he was released.

Following World War II he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1946, and again became a prominent figure in French political life, serving in several cabinet positions. He favoured a United States of Europe, and participated in drafting the constitution for the French Fifth Republic, but resigned from government in 1962 (aged 84) after disagreement with President de Gaulle over changes to the electoral system.