Pierre Laval

We will always be neighbours of Germany. We face the alternative of reaching an agreement with her or of clashing every twenty years on the battlefield.

Pierre Jean Marie Laval (28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 1931 to 1932 and from 1935 to 1936. He again occupied the post during the German occupation, from 1942 to 1944.

Quotes

1930s

• We will always be neighbours of Germany. We face the alternative of reaching an agreement with her or of clashing every twenty years on the battlefield.
  • Remarks to his private secretary (1931), recorded in André Guénier in La Vie de la France, vol. III, p. 1346, quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 23

• Just as war was originally waged between towns, then between countries and recently between empires, so, in future, it would be waged between continents. He did not believe in a Franco-German conflict...but sooner or later the Russians and the Chinese would launch an attack upon Europe. We had to make ourselves safe against this.
  • Remarks to the German foreign minister, Julius Curtius (September 1931), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 24

• War means the end of us all. Mankind is morally incapable of enduring another war, the horrors of which will surpass everything that has occurred hitherto. War would mean the end of Christian civilization.
  • Remarks to a German visitor (25 September 1934), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 60

• I consider agreement between Italy and France, that is to say between the Latin countries, including Nationalist Spain as well, as my life's mission.
  • Remarks to Amedeo Landini (18 March 1938), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 144

• Mr Chamberlain is right to refuse to intervene in Spain, just as he is right to re-establish good relations with Italy. I hope that my country will not delay too long in following England's example.
  • Interview with the Evening Standard (21 March 1938), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), pp. 144-145

• What is going on is abominable. A cry of indignation goes up at such a situation. Today, Germany, who lost the war, has more territory than she had before 1914... I demand that the government should find the solution. But there's one which is impossible and that is to let Germany go on with what she's doing.
  • Speech to the Senate foreign affairs committee the day after Germany occupied Prague (16 March 1939), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 142

• Because French-Italian cooperation had been destroyed Germany was in Vienna and in Prague. By turning their backs on his policy the French Governments had, since 1936, compromised the security of France and given to Germany the means, or at least part of the means, to capture the hegemony of Europe. In 1935, without a formal treaty, she had, in fact, become the ally of France. Although the Berlin-Rome Axis might be solid, and relations bad between Paris and Rome, M. Laval, nevertheless, could not finally acquiesce in a situation that was manifestly contrary to the interests of both countries.
  • Speech in Paris (24 June 1939), quoted in 'French Cooperation With Italy', The Times (26 June 1939), p. 13

1940s

• Well, it was unfortunate for us all that he [Ramsay MacDonald] refused to face the unpalatable fact of Abyssinia at Stresa, because Mussolini mistook his silence for agreement instead of imbecility; and his subsequent disillusion threw him into the arms of Germany, with the result that we lost Austria, and with it the whole of central Europe.
  Now, Mr. Boothby, I want to tell you that I think this war is a great mistake. If we had come to terms with Mussolini, as I wanted to do, we might have held Germany. That is no longer possible. We have given most of Europe to Hitler. Let us try to hold on to what we have got left. I am a peasant from the Auvergne. I want to keep my farm, and I want to keep France. Nothing else matters now... Make peace at once. Those people, have no idea of what they are up against.
  • Remarks to Robert Boothby (c. March 1940), quoted in Robert Boothby, Recollections of a Rebel (1978), p. 138

• Gamelin is absolutely useless. The troops are all underground in that wretched Maginot Line, and completely demoralized. They should be in armour, but we haven't got any... Their [the French people] heart is not in this war... Quite soon the Germans are going to attack us. They will defeat us in three weeks, and we shall have to surrender. I would like to avoid that. We have already given them central and eastern Europe, and that we cannot undo. If we accept that, they might leave us alone, at least for a time; and ultimately turn east. Meanwhile, if we are to avoid immediate disaster, we have no alternative but to come to terms with them.
  • Remarks to Robert Boothby (c. March 1940), quoted in Robert Boothby, Recollections of a Rebel (1978), pp. 138-139

• Whether, in the last resort, Germany wins the war or not, we now have less choice than ever. We must reach an agreement with her... I don't believe in the permanence or even the long life of Nazism. In fifteen or twenty years' time – and that's nothing in history – Europe will have a new thirst for freedom. If the French flame has been kept alight, albeit dimly, it is to her that they will come to rekindle the extinguished torches...for there will be no one else.
  • Remarks to a friend (June 1940), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), pp. 190-191

• There are two alternatives, either you agree to what we ask and model yourselves on the German and Italian constitutions, or Hitler will force you to do so... France has never had and never will have a more inveterate enemy than Great Britain. Our whole history bears witness to that. We have been nothing but toys in the hands of England, who has exploited us to ensure her own safety. Today we are at the bottom of the abyss where she led us... I see only one way to restore France...to the position which she is entitled: namely, to ally ourselves resolutely with Germany and to confront England together.
  • Speech to the deputies (5 July 1940), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), pp. 197-198

• Since parliamentary democracy wished to enter into a struggle with Nazism and fascism and since it lost that struggle, it must disappear. A new régime – one that is bold, authoritarian, social and national – must take its place.
  • Speech to an audience of members of parliament (8 July 1940), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 190

• I desire the victory of Germany, for without it, bolshevism would tomorrow install itself everywhere.
  • Broadcast (22 June 1942), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 301

• I tried to organize peace in Europe and I thought that the first thing to do was to bring France and Italy together. I thought that this was the first link in a chain which would one day lead us to an agreement with Germany.
  • Speech to an audience of teachers (3 September 1942), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 63

• We must organize our continent and Europe will be weak or it will be strong. For it to survive, it must be constructed according to certain principles... The organization of all the countries which comprise our continent must be such that neither the conquerors nor the conquered are ever again tempted to rise up against one another. On the material plane, the countries must help one another and harmonize their economic interests so that the needs of each can be satisfied without recourse to the competition and violence which have too often been the rule of the past. The new Europe will last if the germs of revenge are forever eradicated from it.
  • Broadcast (5 June 1943), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 418

• I have always had simple ideas in politics. People take me for a shyster, but they don't know me. What I do is so simple that it looks to those who don't understand like something very complicated.
  • Speech to mayors of the Lyon region (22 April 1944), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 422

• It has been said that I lacked idealism, doubtless because I believed and still do believe that, while politics must not neglect the imponderables, it must be based upon realities, especially in the foreign field. Régimes follow one another and revolutions take place, but geography remains unchanged. We will be neighbours of Germany forever.
  • Statement written in his prison cell (1945), recorded in Lavel Parle: Notes et Mémoires rédigés par Pierre Laval dans sa cellule, avec une préface de sa fille et de nombreaux documents inédits (1947), p. 89, quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 23

Quotes about Pierre Laval

• You have tried to give and to keep. You wanted to have your cake and eat it. You cancelled your words by your deeds and your deeds by your words. You have debased everything by fixing, intrigue and slickness... Not sensitive enough to the importance of great moral issues, you have reduced everything to the level of your petty methods.
  • Léon Blum, speech in the Chamber of Deputies against the Hoare–Laval Pact (December 1935), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 126

• M. Laval believed that world-wide peace hinged on keeping peace in Europe; that European peace hinged on cordial relations between France and Germany; and that France and Germany could work out their differences only if the British would refrain from interfering in European affairs in execution of their traditional balance-of-power policy... He envisioned a future where Europe would be more or less united, Russia would be thrust back into Asia, and the Anglo-Saxon world would lead an autonomous existence with the United States and France serving as the point of contact between the European and Anglo-Saxon world.
  • Walter E. Edge, A Jerseyman's Journal: Fifty Years of American Business and Politics (1948), p. 207

• He impressed me strongly as a man of directness and solidity of mind with whom it was possible to pursue a subject consecutively in a way which Englishmen understand.
  • John Simon, enclosure in Simon to Robert Vansittart (17 November 1931), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 25

• My impression of Laval has steadily risen during this series of conferences from the first time I met him in Paris. He has shown himself to be able, forceful man and I think also a sincere man... His speeches in the conference were always to the point, clear and forceful. In his talks with me he was extremely frank and towards the end of our acquaintance manifested the utmost friendliness.
  • Henry L. Stimson, diary entry (4 July 1931), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), p. 39

• Laval stands in a class by himself for frankness and directness and simplicity and he is different from all other Frenchmen with whom I have negotiated in these respects.
  • Henry L. Stimson, diary entry (23 October 1931), quoted in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (1968), pp. 24-25