Paul Reynaud: Encyclopedia II - Paul Reynaud - Early life and politics

Paul Reynaud - Early life and politics

Reynaud was born in Barcelonnette, France. His father had made a fortune in the textile industry, enabling Reynaud to study law at the Sorbonne. Reynaud was elected to the French Chamber of Deputies from 1919 to 1924, representing Basses-Alpes, and again from 1928, representing a Paris district. Although he was first elected as part of the conservative "Blue Horizon" bloc in 1919, Reynaud shortly thereafter switched his allegiance to the center-right Alliance Démocratique party. Reynaud later became the vice-president of his party.

In the 1920s, Reynaud developed a reputation for laxity on German reparations, at a time when many in the French government backed harsher terms for Germany. In the 1930s, particularly after 1933, Reynaud's stance hardened against the Germans. Reynaud backed a strong alliance with the United Kingdom and, unlike many others on the French Right, better relations with the Soviet Union as a counterweight against the Germans.^[1]

Reynaud held several cabinet posts in the early 1930s, but he clashed with members of his party after 1932 over French foreign and defense policy and was not given another cabinet position until 1938. Like Winston Churchill, Reynaud was a maverick in his party and often alone in his calls for rearmament and resistance to German aggrandizement. Reynaud was a supporter of Charles de Gaulle's theories of mechanized warfare in contrast to the static defense doctrines that were in vogue among many of his countrymen, symbolized by the Maginot Line, and was an outspoken opponent of appeasement in the run-up to the Second World War. He also clashed with his party on economic policy, backing the devaluation of the franc as a solution to France's economic woes. However, Pierre Étienne Flandin, the leader of the Alliance Démocratique, agreed with several of Reynaud's key policy stances, particularly on Reynaud's defense of economic liberalism.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Early life and politics", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki