Léon Blum

French politician (1872–1950) · 1872–1950

Appears in 7 videos · 8 passages, 2 of them in depth.

Summary

Dominique Pagani mainly discusses Léon Blum as the head of the Popular Front. He points out that the paid holidays of that period arouse the hatred of the bourgeoisie1. However, he stresses that these gains come from the strikes and not from the government, which he describes as social-democratic and anti-communist2. In his view, Blum would have liked the Popular Front to stop at its electoral victory3. The point he returns to most often is the refusal to intervene in Republican Spain "out of love of peace"4 5. In his sessions on war and peace, he uses this as a counter-example to the opposition between warmongers and pacifists: he presents Blum as a pacifist who ends up in the same camp as the signatories of Munich6 7. In connection with Michel Clouscard, he also mentions the Blum-Byrnes agreements, which open the French market to American cinema8.

Summary produced automatically from 8 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Who is this?

André Léon Blum (French:; 9 April 1872 – 30 March 1950) was a French socialist politician and three-time Prime Minister of France. As a Jew, he was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century. Blum was a disciple of socialist leader Jean Jaurès and became his successor after Jaurès' assassination in 1914. Despite Blum's relatively short tenures, his time in office was very influential. As prime minister in the left-wing Popular Front government in 1936–1937, he provided a series of major economic and social reforms. […]

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Text: Wikipédia, CC BY-SA 4.0, excerpt · Portrait: Agence de presse Meurisse, Public domain

Cycle 11 · 3 Mar 2023War, neo-fascism: libertarian liberalism

21:00Anticommunist social democrat at the head of the Popular Front; the gains come from the strikes, and his government refuses to intervene in Spain.

Cycle 10 · 8 Dec 2021#10.6 War and peace: “The death drives advance in silence…” (Freud)

47:33A counter-example to the opposition between warmongers and pacifists.
1:15:57At the head of the Popular Front, he refuses to intervene in Spain out of love of peace; he is a pacifist, in the same camp as those of Munich.