Paul Reynaud - Prime Minister and Arrest

Prime Minister and Arrest

Although Reynaud was increasingly popular, the Chamber of Deputies elected Reynaud premier by only a single vote with most of his own party abstaining; over half of the votes for Reynaud came from the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) party. With so much support from the left – and the opposition from many parties on the right – Reynaud's government was especially unstable; many on the Right demanded that Reynaud attack not Germany, but the Soviet Union. The Chamber also forced Daladier, whom Reynaud held personally responsible for France's weakness, to be Reynaud's Minister of National Defense and War. One of Reynaud's first acts was to sign a declaration with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that neither of the two countries would sign a separate peace.

Reynaud abandoned any notion of a "long war strategy" based on attrition. Reynaud entertained suggestions to expand the war to the Balkans or northern Europe; he was instrumental in launching the allied campaign in Norway, though it ended in failure. Britain's decision to withdraw on 26 April prompted Reynaud to travel to London to personally lobby the British to stand and fight in Norway.

The Battle of France began less than two months after Reynaud came to office. France was badly mauled by the initial attack in early May 1940, and Paris was threatened. On 15 May, five days after the invasion began, Reynaud contacted his British counterpart and famously remarked, "We have been defeated... we are beaten; we have lost the battle.... The front is broken near Sedan." Charles de Gaulle, whom Reynaud had long supported and one of the few French commanders to have fought the Germans successfully in 1940, was promoted to brigadier general and named undersecretary of war. On 18 May Reynaud removed commander-in-chief Maurice Gamelin in favor of Maxime Weygand.

As France's situation grew increasingly desperate, Reynaud accepted Marshal Philippe Pétain as Minister of State. Pétain, an aged veteran of the First World War, advised an armistice. Soon after the occupation of Paris, there was increasing pressure on Reynaud to come to a separate peace with Germany. Reynaud refused to be a party to such an undertaking, and was among the few in the cabinet to support accepting the British proposal on 16 June to unite France and the United Kingdom to avoid surrender. Discouraged by the cabinet's hostile reaction to the proposal and its preference for an armistice, and believing that his ministers no longer supported him, Reynaud resigned that evening.

Pétain, who became the leader of the new government (the last one of the Third Republic), signed the armistice on 22 June. On 28 June, Reynaud and his mistress the Comtesse Helène de Portes were involved in a road accident in the south of France. The car Reynaud was driving left the road and hit a tree. De Portes was killed instantly; Reynaud suffered a head injury. It has been suggested they were fleeing to Spain, but were travelling to Reynaud's holiday home on the Riviera. Hospitalized at Montpellier, Reynaud allegedly told Bill Bullitt, American ambassador, 'I have lost my country, my honour and my love'. After his discharge from hospital, Reynaud was arrested on Pétain's orders and imprisoned at Fort du Portalet.

Pétain decided against having him charged during the Riom Trial, and transferred him to the Germans. They held him as prisoner until the end of the war. Reynaud was liberated by Allied troops with other French prisoners in the Itter Castle near Wörgl, Austria, on 7 May 1945.