Leon Blum biography

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In October 1940, after the French collapse in World War II, Blum was indicted by the Vichy government on charges of war guilt, and in February 1942 was brought to trial at the court of Riom. Unlike previous biographies that downplay the significance of Blum’s Jewish heritage on his progressive politics, Pierre Birnbaum’s portrait depicts an extraordinary man whose political convictions were shaped and driven by his cultural background.

The Popular Front's most intractable problem was national defense against the growing power of the Rome-Berlin axis, and its misguided policy of "nonintervention" in the Spanish Civil War was denounced as appeasement which it surely was.

After the right-wing demonstrations in Paris of February 1934, Blum worked for solidarity between Socialists, Radicals, and all other opponents of Fascism.

He was also the first Jewish Prime Minister of France.

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Among POLITICIANS

Among politicians, Léon Blum ranks 1,701 out of 19,576.

After him are Paul Langevin, Anton Denikin, Marcel Mauss, Djemal Pasha, Maurice Gamelin, and Sergei Diaghilev. Blum, its chief architect, became premier as leader of the Popular Front government of June 1936. Modified Popular Front governments were formed by Camille Chautemps, in which Blum served as vice-premier, and by Blum again in March 1938.

He refused office under his successor, Edouard Daladier. Birnbaum’s Léon Blum is a critical chapter in the larger history of Jews in France.

One of France’s most eminent political sociologists, Pierre Birnbaum is professor emeritus at the Sorbonne.

Blum's government, in power from June 1936 to June 1937 and again in March-April 1938, enacted new social legislation in response to a wave of strikes. While in prison, he wrote a political essay titled "À l'échelle humaine" (For All Humanity, 1945).

After France's liberation, Blum resumed writing articles for "Le Populaire de Paris." In January 1946, he was offered the position of Ambassador-at-Large for debt negotiations.

His government introduced, against considerable opposition, the 40-hour workweek and secured paid vacations and collective bargaining for many workers; it nationalized the chief war industries and the Bank of France, and carried out other social reforms. First elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1919, his first task was to rebuild the Socialist Party after the split of December 1920 when the communist faction won a majority at the party's Congress of Tours and so inherited the party machinery, funds, and press.

Before him are Idris of Libya, Afonso IV of Portugal, Abdul Latif Rashid, Christian III of Denmark, Ferdinand Karl, Archduke of Austria-Este, and Musaylimah. In the elections of 1928 the Socialist Party won 104 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, but Blum himself was defeated. Blum's government fell partly due to strong opposition from industrialists and financiers, as well as the lukewarm support from the communists, who criticized him for his non-interventionist policy in the Spanish Civil War.

Blum shifted to a more resolute stance against Nazi Germany's aggressive claims a year before the outbreak of World War II.

He firmly opposed the Munich Agreement in 1938. He was the first Socialist and the first Jew to become premier of France.

Leon Blum

French politician, first socialist and first Jew to head the French government (Prime Minister 1936–1937 and one month in 1938)

Country: France

Content:

Biography of Leon Blum
Early Life and Education
Early Career
Entry into Politics
Leadership in the Socialist Party
Premiership and Legacy

Biography of Leon Blum

Leon Blum was a French politician, the first socialist and the first Jew to lead the French government as Prime Minister from 1936 to 1937 and for one month in 1938.

Early Life and Education

Born on April 9, 1872, in Paris, Blum came from a middle-class Jewish family.