Auriol, Vincent

Auriol, Vincent

(văNsäN` ôryôl`), 1884–1966, French statesman, first president (1947–54) of the Fourth Republic. A Socialist deputy after 1914, he was finance minister under Léon BlumBlum, Léon
, 1872–1950, French Socialist leader and writer. Well established in literary circles, he entered politics during the Dreyfus Affair and rose to party leadership.
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 (1936–37) and minister of justice in the cabinet of Camille ChautempsChautemps, Camille
, 1885–1963, French politician. A Radical Socialist leader, he was premier in 1930 and in 1933–34, when the Stavisky Affair (in which he was not directly implicated) caused his resignation.
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 (1937–38). He refused (1940) to vote plenary powers to Marshal PétainPétain, Henri Philippe
, 1856–1951, French army officer, head of state of the Vichy government (see under Vichy). In World War I he halted the Germans at Verdun (1916), thus becoming the most beloved French military hero of that conflict.
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 and was held in custody by the Vichy government. Released in 1941, he worked in the French underground and in 1943 left France to join Gen. Charles de Gaulle. A member of the provisional government (1945), he was elected (1946) president of the national assembly. He was president of the republic from 1947 to 1954. In 1958 he aided de Gaulle's return to power, but he later protested (1960) against what he considered de Gaulle's arbitrary rule. He resigned from the Socialist party in 1959.

Auriol, Vincent

 

Born Aug. 27, 1884, in Revel, Haute Garonne; died Jan. 1, 1966, in Paris. French governmental and political figure.

Auriol became a Socialist Party deputy in parliament in 1914 and from 1919 to 1939 served as secretary of the party’s parliamentary group. From 1924 to 1925 he was chairman of the finance committee of the Chamber of Deputies. From 1936 to 1938 he held various ministerial posts in the Popular Front governments. In June 1940 he voted against the transfer of power to Marshal H. P. Pétain. In 1943 he joined the Fighting French movement in London. From January 1946 to January 1947 he served as president of the first and second constituent assemblies and then as chairman of the National Assembly.

Auriol was president of the French Republic from January 1947 to January 1954. In May 1947 he signed the decree by which Communist ministers were removed from the government. He supported France’s entry into NATO in 1949 and into the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. In December 1958, Auriol resigned from the Socialist Party because of disagreements with the party leadership. He became a member of the Constitutional Council in February 1959 but in 1962 refused to participate in its work in protest against the Fifth Republic. Auriol was made honorary chairman of the World Veterans Federation in 1954.

WORKS

Mon Septennat 1947–1954. [Paris, 1970.]