Jean Louis Barthou (25 August 1862 – 9 October 1934) was Prime Minister of France from 22 March to 9 December 1913, succeeding Aristide Briand and preceding Gaston Doumerge.
Biography[]
Jean Louis Barthou was born on Oloroan-Sainte-Marie, France on 25 August 1862, and he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1889 as a moderate right-wing politician. Barthou held a large number of ministerial appointments before and after World War I due to his political skills; he briefly served as Prime Minister of France in 1913. He was hostile to Germany and suspicious of Aristide Briand's policies, and he had the opportunity to impose harsh measures on the defeated Germany as president of the 1922-1926 Reparations Committee. As a result of this viiglant stance, he led French hostility towards the aggressive Nazi regime in Germany in 1933 and 1934, and he prepared an anti-fascist alliance with the Soviet Union, which was concluded by Pierre Laval in 1935 after his death. On 9 October 1934, he was assassinated during a state visit of the Yugoslavian king Alexander I, depriving France of its last major politicial ready to stand up to Hitler.