René Jean Pleven

Nationality

France

Date of Birth

1901

Date of Death

1993

Political
Preference

Socialist/Liberal/Conservative (UDSR)

René Pleven was a French politician. Born in Rennes, France, Pleven studied Law at the University of Paris and moved to the United States, Canada and Great Britain to pursue work. During World War II, he was in charge of encouraging the United States to construct and sell aircrafts to the Allies. He joined the Free French Forces in 1940, opposing the Nazi-allied French Vichy-regime. During the French exile to London, Pleven was national commissioner for the economy, finance, the colonies and foreign affairs as part of the French National Committee. In doing so, he participated in the financial talks at the U.K. Treasury which were instigated by John Maynard Keynes in 1942 and 1943. During that time, he also was a member of the Comité des Ministrès des Affaires Étrangères des Gouvernements allies, which had been created at the insistent Polish attempts to create an inter-allied platform that would support the Polish ideas for the creation of a post-war (Eastern) European federation.

After France was liberated, Pleven served as Minister of the Economy and Finance in the French provisional government. In 1946, he founded the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR), a French political party including multiple ideologies, but mostly positioned between the radical socialists and the socialists, and decidedly anti-communist. Pleven was the Party’s president from 1946 to 1953. He held various ministerial positions, notably as Defence Minister from 1949 to 1950 and again from 1952 to 1954, and in 1950 became Prime Minister of France.

Pleven was a supporter of European integration and pushed for the ratification of the Schuman Plan and the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in his role as Prime Minister. He actively bargained for and collected votes in the French parliament to achieve those goals, and proposed a European Defense Community. Proposed in 1950, the so-called Pleven Plan, was a response to the American call for the re-armament of West Germany, and envisioned a European community of defence that limited Germany’s access to NATO and war capabilities, with the possibility of harnessing Germany’s military capabilities in a potential conflict with the Soviet bloc. It was ultimately defeated by the Gaullists, communists and socialists. Pleven went on to become the last Foreign Minister of the French Fourth Republic in 1958.