Jean Marie Albin Édouard Valadier (7 September 1878 – 9 December 1959) was a French lawyer, administrator and politician who was senator from 1928 to 1945, and was briefly Minister of Labor and Social Security in 1934.
Early years
Jean Marie Albin Édouard Valadier was born on 7 September 1878 in Nîmes, Gard.
In July 1904 he obtained a degree in Law, and became private secretary to
René Viviani
Jean Raphaël Adrien René Viviani (; 8 November 18637 September 1925) was a French politician of the Third Republic, who served as Prime Minister for the first year of World War I. He was born in Sidi Bel Abbès, in French Algeria. In France ...
, Minister of Labor.
In March 1911 he was appointed controller at the Ministry of Labor.
He was elected to the municipal council of Brou, Eure-et-Loir, in May 1912.
During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
(1914–18) he won the Croix de Guerre in October 1915 and the Legion of Honor (military) in January 1918.
Valadier was secretary general of the French high commission in Great Britain, then in March 1920 became controller general of the Ministry of Labor.
He headed the office of Albert Peyronnet, Minister of Labor in the second cabinet of Raymond Poincaré in 1922.
In January 1923 he was appointed director of pensions and social insurance.
In June 1926 he was elected to the general council of
Eure-et-Loir
Eure-et-Loir (, locally: ) is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers. It is located in the region of Centre-Val de Loire. In 2019, Eure-et-Loir had a population of 431,575.Minister of Labor and Social Assurance in the second cabinet of
Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier (; 18 June 1884 – 10 October 1970) was a French Radical-Socialist (centre-left) politician, and the Prime Minister of France who signed the Munich Agreement before the outbreak of World War II.
Daladier was born in Carpe ...
, which resigned the day after the events of 6 February 1934.
During World War II (1939–45) Valadier was proclaimed vice-president of the Senate on 11 January 1940.
On 8 February 1940 he was designated to chair the High Court of Justice in the absence of the president.
On 10 July 1940 Valadier voted in
Vichy
Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais.
It is a spa and resort town and in World War II was the capital of ...
in favor of the constitutional law that gave full powers to Marshal
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of Worl ...
.
Valadier explained, "it is better to keep in contact with Petain and collaborate with him in order to try to save the Senate and to preserve something of our democratic laws. I don't believe ... that, in the new constitution that the Marshal will draft, the Senate will be abolished. It will only be modified."
Valadier was closely associated with
Pierre-Étienne Flandin
Pierre-Étienne Flandin (; 12 April 1889 – 13 June 1958) was a French conservative politician of the Third Republic, leader of the Democratic Republican Alliance (ARD), and Prime Minister of France from 8 November 1934 to 31 May 1935.
A milit ...
.
He was appointed to the National Council that Flandin established in January 1941.
On 7 February 1941 Valadier proposed that the Senate alone should have the role of "representation of the country".
Its role would be advisory, through a committee of thirty on the basic laws.
After the
Liberation of France
The liberation of France in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French Resistance.
Nazi Germany inv ...
Valadier was expelled from the Radical Party.
He died in Paris on 9 December 1959 aged 81.