Daladier, Eduard

b. 1874; d. 1970

French statesman, son of a baker, born at Carpentras, Vaucluse. He served with distinction in the First World War.

In 1919 Daladier was elected as a Radical-Socialist deputy. He held various ministerial posts from 1924, and succeeded Herriot as chairman of the Radical-Socialist party in 1927. Daladier was premier for some months in 1933, again for a short time in 1934, and from 1936 served as war minister in various Popular Front governments. He was premier again from April 1938 to March 1940, remaining in charge of the war ministry as well. Daladier was one of the signatories of the Munich Pact, September 1938. When the Chamber became critical of his personal rule and demanded a more vigorous prosecution of the war, Daladier resigned (21 March 1940). He retained for a time first the war ministry, then the foreign ministry under Reynaud, but was removed from the government in June 1940, and after the French collapse he was detained by the Pétain government, and interned by the Germans. He was released in 1945; became a member of the Constituent Assembly in 1946, and was a member of the National Assembly 1947-58. He published The Defence of France in 1939.

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