Pierre Laval (28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. He served four times as President of the council of ministers of the Third Republic, twice consecutively. Following France's Armistice with Germany in 1940, he served twice in the Vichy Regime as head of government. After the Liberation (1945), he was arrested, found guilty of high treason, and executed by firing squad. The controversy surrounding his political activities has ...
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Pierre Laval (28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. He served four times as President of the council of ministers of the Third Republic, twice consecutively. Following France's Armistice with Germany in 1940, he served twice in the Vichy Regime as head of government. After the Liberation (1945), he was arrested, found guilty of high treason, and executed by firing squad. The controversy surrounding his political activities has generated over a dozen biographies.
Laval was born 28 June 1883 at Châteldon, Puy-de-Dôme, in the northern part of Auvergne. His father worked in the village as a café proprietor, butcher, and postman, and was sufficiently well-to-do to own a few acres of vineyard and half a dozen horses. Laval never forgot, and never allowed his associates to forget, that he was essentially a son of Auvergne.
Young Pierre was first educated at the village school in Châteldon, then at the age of fifteen he was sent to a Paris lycée to take his baccalauréat. He...
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