MENDÈS-FRANCE, PIERRE

MENDÈS-FRANCE, PIERRE (1907–1982), French statesman. Born and educated in Paris, his university thesis Le Redressement Financier Francais en 1926 et 1927 (1928) attracted   considerable attention and his later study, L'Oeuvre financière du gouvernement Poincaré (1928) was used as propaganda by the left-wing parties and made Mendès-France one of the leading financial experts of the Radical party. At the age of 16 Mendès-France joined the Radical Socialist Party and in 1932 was elected to the National Assembly, being its youngest member. In the same year he outlined an economic program for the party which was accepted at its conference at Toulouse. He supported the Popular Front government of 1936–38 and in 1938 was an undersecretary to the treasury. An advocate of resistance to the Nazis even before World War II, Mendès-France organized an opposition to the Vichy government after the fall of France and was imprisoned by the Pétain government. He escaped to England in 1941 and joined the Free Fench under General De Gaulle who later made him finance commissioner of Algeria. From 1944 to 1945 he was minister of economic affairs and in 1946 he was appointed French governor of the Bank for Reconstruction and Development. In the same year he returned to parliament and in 1954, after a series of cabinet crises, became prime minister with a huge majority of 419 out of 617 deputies. As premier, Mendès-France offered France a "new deal," promising to end the Indochina war, tackle the problems of European defense, and enact wide-reaching economic reforms. His prestige rose considerably when he ended the war and introduced the plan for a Western European Defense Community with a British military commitment for the defense of Europe. In February 1955 he was defeated over his North Africa policy to grant independence to Morocco and Tunisia and resigned. From January to May 1956 Mendès-France was minister without portfolio but resigned following disagreement with the prime minister, Guy Mollet, on the Algerian policy. He remained an important figure in French politics and frequently opposed De Gaulle's policies. In 1968, he formed a new party, the Parti Socialiste Unifié, which he headed. Mendès-France was a consistent supporter of Zionism and outspoken in his championship of the cause of Israel. He was an ascetic in his private life and once aroused controversy when he urged Frenchmen to abandon their wine drinking for milk, his favorite beverage. He wrote extensively on politics and finance. His books are widely read and some have been translated into other languages. They include: La Banque Internationale (1930); Liberté, Liberté Chérie (1943; The Pursuit of Freedom, 1956); Gouverner c'est choisir (3 vols., 1953–58); and La République moderne (1962; A Modern French Republic, 1963). (Moshe Rosetti)