Reynaud, Paul

Reynaud, Paul (1878–1966),French politician who was a leading member of the Democratic Alliance from 1930 and served as president of the council of ministers (prime minister) during the fighting which preceded the fall of France in June 1940.

When the more aggressively minded Reynaud succeeded Daladier as head of the French government on 21 March 1940 (a change which delighted Churchill) he also became foreign minister. On 28 March he made an agreement with the British that neither country would sign a separate peace with Germany and the following month he supported Allied intervention in Norway (see Norwegian campaign). Despite the early disasters that befell the French Army when the Germans launched their offensive (see FALL GELB) he announced to the French National Assembly on 16 May that though only a miracle could save France, ‘I believe in miracles.’

On 20 May he moved Daladier to the foreign ministry and took Daladier's post as minister of national defence and war while remaining prime minister. The same day he replaced Gamelin, the C-in-C Allied Forces, with Weygand and appointed Marshal Pétain deputy prime minister. But these changes failed to stem the German onslaught and put, as one historian has remarked, too many doves amongst the hawks. Though Reynaud's determination to fight on had one staunch supporter in de Gaulle—who became Reynaud's under-secretary for war on 5 June 1940—the coalition which Reynaud now led became increasingly defeatist. On 15 June, with the government now at Bordeaux, the cabinet decided to ask the British government to release France from the agreement of 28 March. Reynaud wanted to resign, but was dissuaded. The next day, the British accepted the French request, provided the French fleet was sailed to British ports to be beyond the Germans' reach (see also Mers-el-Kébir). Reynaud then proposed that he army should surrender, but that the government should continue the fight in North Africa. This brought little support from the cabinet and Pétain resigned. Though Reynaud was keen on the idea, Churchill's proposition for indissoluble union between France and the UK was received by the French with an equal lack of enthusiasm. Reynaud then resigned to be replaced by Pétain, who interned him in September 1940, and in November 1942 the Germans imprisoned him in Oranienburg concentration camp, and later in Itter castle in Austria. After being released by the Americans, he was the principal witness at Pétain's trial.See also France, 3(a).