Aristide Briand

Aristride Briand died unexpectedly on March 7, 1932, in Paris, at the age of 69. He was buried at Cocherel, his country retreat.

Aristide Briand was born on March 28, 1862, in Nantes in Western France, to Pierre Guillaume Briand and Madeleine Boucheau. His parents, who belonged to petit bourgeois class, were prosperous innkeepers. As a result, he was as much a peasant as an aristocrat and had the attributes of both.

Aristide started his education at Saint Nazaire. Later, he did his secondary schooling at Nantes Lycée and finally went to Paris to study law. There he became attracted to left wing politics.

Briand was never a studious boy and rarely studied unless the examination was near. Then he would concentrate greatly and aided by his extraordinary intelligence and memory he would fly through his examination, leaving his peers behind.

Although Briand established his practice after graduating with a degree of law his real interest lay in journalism. He soon took that up as his profession and began to write for journals like Le Peuple. The paper was a staunch supporter of syndicalism. Later, he joined La Lanterne and then Petite République.

Aristide Briand became a member of the French Socialist Party while he was still a law student. Later, he also became an active member of labor union. In 1889 election, he ran for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, but lost. He tried once more in 1893; this time too he was unsuccessful in securing a seat.

Nonetheless, his influence within the party began to grow. In 1894, while attending worker’s congress in Nantes, Briand was able to persuade the trade unionists to adopt general strike as a tool for advancing workers’ cause. In this, he had to go against heavyweight leaders like Jules Guesde.

After the Nantes workers congress, Briand began to be considered as one of the leaders of French Socialist Party. In spite of that, he lost the 1898 election. However, such loss did not make him any less popular and in 1901, he became the General Secretary of the French Socialist Party.

Finally in 1902, at the age of forty, he was elected as a Deputy for the first time. Immediately he began working on a law that aimed to separate the church and the state and became the moving force behind the commission that was created to prepare the draft.

In 1904, while he was still working on the law relating to the separation of the church and the state, Briand joined Jean Jaurès to co-found ‘L'Humanité’, a daily newspaper associated with the French Communist Party. However, it is now AN independent paper, but still very popular.

Aristide Briand represented France in the Locarno Treaties, which was regarded as the foundation of improved international relationship in the post World War I Europe. It consisted of seven separate agreements between major European powers like Germany, Great Britain, France and Belgium.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 is another milestone in Aristide Briand’s career. The agreement officially known as ‘General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy’ was signed by fifteen countries. It outlawed war as an instrument of resolving any kind of dispute among the signatory states.