Pierre Cot
Encyclopedia
.
Pierre Cot French politician, was a leading figure in the Popular Front
government of the 1930s. Born in Grenoble
into a conservative Catholic family, he entered politics as an admirer of the World War I
conservative leader Raymond Poincaré
, but moved steadily to the left over the course of his career.
In the 1920s Cot was a supporter of Aristide Briand
, an independent socialist. In 1928 he was elected to the National Assembly
as a Radical Deputy for Savoy
. In December 1932 he was appointed Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the centre-left government of Joseph Paul-Boncour
. In January 1933 he became Minister for Air in the Radical government of Édouard Daladier
. He oversaw the establishment of Air France
, and advocated a major expansion of the French Air Force
, but left office in February 1934 when the Stavisky Affair
forced Daladier from power. He was again Minister for Air in three brief governments led by Camille Chautemps
.
In 1936 Cot, by this time a convinced Socialist, became a leading support of the Popular Front, an alliance of the Radicals and the Socialists
led by Léon Blum
, with the support of the French Communist Party
. An antiwar activist, though not a pacifist, he was president of the International Peace Conference from 1936 to 1940. He received the Stalin Peace Prize as a result in 1953.
When Blum became Prime Minister in June 1936, Cot returned to the Air Ministry. He oversaw the nationalisation of the aeronautical industry and the launch of a re-armament program to meet the challenge of the fast-growing German Luftwaffe
.
When the Spanish Civil War
broke out, Blum's government reluctantly supported the policy of non-intervention, but Cot became a leading organiser of clandestine aid to the Spanish Republic. The head of his ministerial office, Jean Moulin
(later a leader of the French Resistance
), made several trips to Spain. This brought Cot into close collaboration with the Communists, with whom he had increasingly sympathised since a visit to the Soviet Union
in 1933. His activities were one of the factors leading to the withdrawal of the right wing of the Radical Party from the government and Blum's resignation in June 1937. In Blum's second government in March and April 1938, Cot was Minister for Commerce.
When Daladier returned to office and signed the Munich Agreement
with Hitler
, Cot broke finally with the Radical Party.
In May 1940 Prime Minister Paul Reynaud
sent Cot on a mission to buy arms, particularly aircraft, from the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the Hitler-Stalin Pact
of August 1939 had in effect made the Soviet Union a German ally. The fall of France the following month rendered his mission pointless. He flew to London and offered his services to Charles de Gaulle
's Free French movement, but de Gaulle considered him to be too pro-Communist and offered him no position. Cot then went to the United States, where he spent the war years teaching at Yale University
.
Cot was an influential figure among French political exiles, and in 1943 de Gaulle appointed him a member of the provisional French advisory assembly based in Algiers
. De Gaulle also sent him to Moscow to negotiate Soviet recognition of the Free French government in exile.
In 1945 Cot was again elected as Deputy for Savoy, styling himself a Republican although everyone knew he remained close to the Communists. In 1951 he shifted to the Rhône
, but when de Gaulle came to power in 1958 he lost his seat. In 1967 he made a final return to politics when he was elected as an independent Deputy for Paris, with the backing of the Communist Party. He was again defeated in the right-wing landslide election of 1968. He died in Paris in 1977.
Cot's son, Jean-Pierre Cot
, was a minister in the Socialist government of Pierre Mauroy
in 1981–82 and was a member of the European Parliament
in 1978–1979 and 1984–1999. Since 2002 he has been a member of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
.
Pierre Cot French politician, was a leading figure in the Popular Front
Popular Front (France)
The Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period...
government of the 1930s. Born in Grenoble
Grenoble
Grenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère...
into a conservative Catholic family, he entered politics as an admirer of the World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
conservative leader Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920. Poincaré was a conservative leader primarily committed to political and social stability...
, but moved steadily to the left over the course of his career.
In the 1920s Cot was a supporter of Aristide Briand
Aristide Briand
Aristide Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic and received the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize.- Early life :...
, an independent socialist. In 1928 he was elected to the National Assembly
French National Assembly
The French National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. The upper house is the Senate ....
as a Radical Deputy for Savoy
Savoie
Savoie is a French department located in the Rhône-Alpes region in the French Alps.Together with the Haute-Savoie, Savoie is one of the two departments of the historic region of Savoy that was annexed by France on June 14, 1860, following the signature of the Treaty of Turin on March 24, 1860...
. In December 1932 he was appointed Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the centre-left government of Joseph Paul-Boncour
Joseph Paul-Boncour
Augustin Alfred Joseph Paul-Boncour was a French politician of the Third Republic.-Career:Born in Saint-Aignan, Loir-et-Cher, Paul-Boncour received a law degree from the University of Paris and became active in the labor movement, organizing the legal council of the Bourses du Travail...
. In January 1933 he became Minister for Air in the Radical government of Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier was a French Radical politician and the Prime Minister of France at the start of the Second World War.-Career:Daladier was born in Carpentras, Vaucluse. Later, he would become known to many as "the bull of Vaucluse" because of his thick neck and large shoulders and determined...
. He oversaw the establishment of Air France
Air France
Air France , stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...
, and advocated a major expansion of the French Air Force
French Air Force
The French Air Force , literally Army of the Air) is the air force of the French Armed Forces. It was formed in 1909 as the Service Aéronautique, a service arm of the French Army, then was made an independent military arm in 1933...
, but left office in February 1934 when the Stavisky Affair
Stavisky Affair
The Stavisky Affair was a 1934 financial scandal generated by the actions of embezzler Alexandre Stavisky. It had political ramifications for the French Radical Socialist moderate government of the day...
forced Daladier from power. He was again Minister for Air in three brief governments led by Camille Chautemps
Camille Chautemps
Camille Chautemps was a French Radical politician of the Third Republic, three times President of the Council .-Career:Described as "intellectually bereft", Chautemps nevertheless entered politics and became Mayor of Tours in 1912, and a Radical deputy in 1919...
.
In 1936 Cot, by this time a convinced Socialist, became a leading support of the Popular Front, an alliance of the Radicals and the Socialists
Socialist Party (France)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and the largest party of the French centre-left. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France, along with the center-right Union for a Popular Movement...
led by Léon Blum
Léon Blum
André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...
, with the support of the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
. An antiwar activist, though not a pacifist, he was president of the International Peace Conference from 1936 to 1940. He received the Stalin Peace Prize as a result in 1953.
When Blum became Prime Minister in June 1936, Cot returned to the Air Ministry. He oversaw the nationalisation of the aeronautical industry and the launch of a re-armament program to meet the challenge of the fast-growing German Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
.
When the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
broke out, Blum's government reluctantly supported the policy of non-intervention, but Cot became a leading organiser of clandestine aid to the Spanish Republic. The head of his ministerial office, Jean Moulin
Jean Moulin
Jean Moulin was a high-profile member of the French Resistance during World War II. He is remembered today as an emblem of the Resistance primarily due to his role in unifying the French resistance under de Gaulle and his courage and death at the hands of the Germans.-Before the war:Moulin was...
(later a leader of the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
), made several trips to Spain. This brought Cot into close collaboration with the Communists, with whom he had increasingly sympathised since a visit to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1933. His activities were one of the factors leading to the withdrawal of the right wing of the Radical Party from the government and Blum's resignation in June 1937. In Blum's second government in March and April 1938, Cot was Minister for Commerce.
When Daladier returned to office and signed the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
with Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, Cot broke finally with the Radical Party.
In May 1940 Prime Minister Paul Reynaud
Paul Reynaud
Paul Reynaud was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany. He was the penultimate Prime Minister of the Third Republic and vice-president of the Democratic Republican Alliance center-right...
sent Cot on a mission to buy arms, particularly aircraft, from the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the Hitler-Stalin Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
of August 1939 had in effect made the Soviet Union a German ally. The fall of France the following month rendered his mission pointless. He flew to London and offered his services to Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
's Free French movement, but de Gaulle considered him to be too pro-Communist and offered him no position. Cot then went to the United States, where he spent the war years teaching at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
.
Cot was an influential figure among French political exiles, and in 1943 de Gaulle appointed him a member of the provisional French advisory assembly based in Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
. De Gaulle also sent him to Moscow to negotiate Soviet recognition of the Free French government in exile.
In 1945 Cot was again elected as Deputy for Savoy, styling himself a Republican although everyone knew he remained close to the Communists. In 1951 he shifted to the Rhône
Rhône (département)
Rhône is a French department located in the central Eastern region of Rhône-Alpes. It is named after the Rhône River.- History :The Rhône department was created on August 12, 1793 when the former département of Rhône-et-Loire was split into two departments: Rhône and Loire.Originally, the eastern...
, but when de Gaulle came to power in 1958 he lost his seat. In 1967 he made a final return to politics when he was elected as an independent Deputy for Paris, with the backing of the Communist Party. He was again defeated in the right-wing landslide election of 1968. He died in Paris in 1977.
Cot's son, Jean-Pierre Cot
Jean-Pierre Cot
Jean-Pierre Cot is a French Professor for International Law and judge at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.- Biography :He is the son of Pierre Cot, also politician and minister....
, was a minister in the Socialist government of Pierre Mauroy
Pierre Mauroy
Pierre Mauroy is a French Socialist politician and former Prime Minister under François Mitterrand . Mauroy also served as Mayor of Lille from 1973 to 2001. Mauroy is currently emeritus mayor of Lille.-Biography:...
in 1981–82 and was a member of the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
in 1978–1979 and 1984–1999. Since 2002 he has been a member of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is an intergovernmental organization created by the mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. It was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed at Montego Bay, Jamaica, on December 10, 1982...
.
External links
- French biographical website on Pierre Cot (with photo). This website is the main source for this article.