Marx Dormoy (1 August1888—26 July 1941) was a French socialist politician, noted for his opposition to the far right.
Contents |
Born in Montluçon, he was elected mayor of his native town in 1926, and representative of the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO, the Socialist Party of today) to the French National Assembly in 1931 for the Allier département.
A member of the Popular Front's government, cabinet secretary to Léon Blum, he played a part in negotiating the Matignon Accords. From 1936 to 1938 he was Minister of the Interior (replacing Roger Salengro), and fought the rise of violent far right groups such as the Cagoule, using his prerogatives to depose Jacques Doriot, mayor of Saint-Denis - arguing that the Saint-Denis commune had become the site of anti-republican agitation; he was also an opponent of illegal immigration of Eastern European political refugees to France.
On 16 March 1937, Dormoy provoked a crisis inside the Popular Front, after the French Police opened fire on a crowd protesting against a Croix-de-Feu rally in Clichy, after the event had degenerated into disorder. Dormoy was subsequently attacked by Trotskyist groups and by Maurice Thorez, the leader of the French Communist Party, who held him responsible for the bloody incident for having authorised the Croix-de-Feu to march in the city. Dormoy was backed by Blum, and the crisis was over after a motion of confidence was passed in the Parliament of France on 23 March.
In 1938, as an SFIO senator for Allier, he spoke out against the Munich Agreement with Nazi Germany.
Two years later, after the Fall of France, he was one of the minority of parliamentarians who refused to grant full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain. Pétain's Vichy France regime had him suspended from his office as mayor on 20 September 1940, and arrested five days after. He was imprisoned in Pellevoisin, then in Vals-les-Bains, before being placed under house arrest in Montélimar.
He died when a bomb placed by Cagoule terrorists exploded in his house; at the end of World War II in 1945, Marx Dormoy was given a solemn funeral in Montluçon. He is commemorated by having a Métro station and boulevard named after him in the 18th arrondisement of Paris.