On 23 June 1946, the Constituent National Assembly elected Georges Bidault head of the Provisional Government of France. The Bidault Cabinet was responsible for the administration of the country during the formation of the Fourth Republic and the election of a new parliament and national government.
Georges-Augustin Bidault graduated from the Sorbonne as a historian and a teacher. In 1931, he founded the Catholic Association of French Youth. By 1934 he was the editor-in-chief of the left-wing Catholic newspaper “L'Aube”, which opposed fascism, dictatorship, and anti-Semitism. In 1938, Bidault protested against the Munich Agreement.
In 1940, he joined the army, was taken prisoner and kept in a German camp until July 1941. He created an underground resistance group in the non-occupied zone, published leaflets. From 1943 to August 1944 he was chairman of the National Resistance Council - Conseil National de la resistance, and actually headed the resistance in France. After the liberation of Paris in 1944, Bidault became minister of foreign affairs in the provisional government of Charles de Gaulle. He was the one who signed the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance of 1944.
The provisional government under his chairmanship included socialists, communists, and representatives of his own party - The Popular Republican Movement. On 29 November 1946, the government held elections to the National Assembly after which Bidault resigned. His successor was Léon Blum.
Bidault later served as foreign minister in several governments of the Fourth Republic, and established himself as an active supporter of France’s accession to NATO.
In 1958, he opposed Algerian independence and organised the National Resistance Council within a right-wing paramilitary organisation. Bidault was involved in the assassination attempt on de Gaulle in 1962 and fled to Brazil, where he lived until his amnesty in 1968.
Source:
Dmitry Schmelev. Georges Bidault: Intellectual, Politician, Diplomat. Biography Outline. // Proceedings of Kazan University. - Volume 152. Book 3. Part 1. - Kazan, 2010.
