Henri Queuille

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Template:Expand FrenchTemplate:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox Prime Minister Henri Queuille (Template:IPA; 31 March 1884 – 15 June 1970) was a French Radical politician prominent in the Third and Fourth Republics. After World War II, he served three times as Prime Minister.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Biography

Early life

Henri Queuille was born in Neuvic, where his father, who died when Queuille was 11, was a pharmacist and assistant mayor. He was educated at the school in Tulle, then studied medicine in Paris, where he befriended Georges Duhamel, also a medical student.

He returned to Neuvic as a general practitioner, and became active in local politics for the Radical-Socialist Party, being elected mayor of Neuvic in 1912 (he would remain mayor, except when removed by the Vichy government 1941–1945, until 1965), a councillor for the Canton of Neuvic in 1913, and a member of the Chamber of Deputies for Ussel in 1914.

During World War I, Queuille served as a military hospital doctor. He saw service at the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre in September 1916.

Interwar Period

Having been elected a deputy in 1914, Queuille was re-elected at every election until he stood down in 1936, having become a senator for Corrèze in 1935. In local politics, he remained mayor of Neuvic, and additionally became president of the departmental council of Corrèze in 1921.

He first took ministerial office in 1920, as Under-Secretary for Agriculture. Appointed Minister for Agriculture in 1924, he held this post in numerous governments in the 1920s and 1930s. He also served as Minister for Public Health in 1930–31 and 1934–35, Minister for Post and Telecommunications in 1932, and Minister for Public Works in 1937–38, in which position he achieved the nationalisation of the railways, creating the SNCF.

Along with many other leading Radical-Socialist politicians, he was implicated in the Stavisky affair involving the fraudulent financier Alexandre Stavisky, which forced the resignation of Prime Minister Camille Chautemps in 1934.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

World War II

Queuille served as Minister for Supply in the government of Paul Reynaud in 1940. As a senator, he was present at the vote in Vichy on 10 July 1940 which granted all government powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain; Queuille abstained. He returned to Neuvic, where he was removed as mayor by the Vichy government in July 1941.

In 1942, the French Resistance leader Claude Hettier de Boislambert, who passed through Neuvic while in hiding, informed Queuille that General Charles de Gaulle considered it of great importance that Queuille should come round to the Free French cause. After a first failed attempt, Queuille gained passage to London in April 1943, on board an RAF Lysander. A few days later, he broadcast an appeal to the Resistance on the BBC, intended for a rural French audience.

Queuille was appointed to de Gaulle's French Committee of National Liberation based in Algiers in November 1943, becoming its Vice-President, and became a minister of the Provisional Government of the French Republic on its formation in June 1944, sometimes presiding in the absence of General de Gaulle.

Fourth Republic

In the 1945 legislative election, Queuille was defeated for the only time in his career. However, he returned as mayor of Neuvic, and to the Chamber of Deputies in 1946. He was a minister in every government from 1948 to 1954, leading the government three times (1948–49, 1950, 1951). The middle of his three governments was voted out after two days, the shortest government in French history. He also served as Vice-President of the government (1949–50, 1952–54), Minister of Public Works (1948), Minister for Finance (1948–49, during his first government) and Minister of the Interior (1950–51, spanning his second and third governments).

His governments were Third Force coalitions, a centrist bloc opposed to both the Communists and the Gaullists. During his first term, he signed the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO. He also worked with Robert Schuman on the process of European integration.

Pierre Mendès France represented the left wing of the Radical-Socialist Party; Queuille was out of step with his politics. He left the government when Mendès France took the premiership in 1954, and left the Radical-Socialist Party in 1956 to found the Republican Centre. During the crisis of May 1958, Queuille opposed de Gaulle's formation of the Fifth Republic, and campaigned against the adoption of the Fifth Republic's constitution. He did not stand in the 1958 legislative election that followed.

Governments

First ministry (11 September 1948 – 28 October 1949)

Changes:

  • 12 January 1949 – Maurice Petsche succeeds Queuille as Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs.
  • 13 February 1949 – Robert Lecourt succeeds Marie as Vice President of the Council and Minister of Justice.

Second ministry (2 – 12 July 1950)

Third ministry (10 March – 11 August 1951)

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References

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