Blum, Léon

French socialist politician, parliamentary leader of the Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO) in the inter-war period and the first socialist prime minister of France 1936–37, when his Popular Front government introduced paid holidays and the 40-hour working week in France. He was prime minister again in 1938 and 1946.

As prime minister leading a socialist–radical coalition supported in parliament by the communists, Blum negotiated the Matignon agreements on pay and conditions with employers and unions, which ended the spontaneous wave of factory occupations triggered by the Left's electoral victory in June 1936. He brought the Bank of France under state control, and nationalized the armaments industry. Controversially, he also pursued a policy of non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War. As France's first Jewish prime minister, Blum was subjected to vitriolic anti-Semitic attacks from France's extreme right. Arrested and imprisoned by the Vichy authorities in September 1940, and deported to Buchenwald following the adjournment of his trial at Riom in 1942, Blum was only released, by the Allies, in 1945.