Briand, Aristide (1862-1932)

French republican politician, 11 times prime minister 1909-29. A skilful parliamentary tactician and orator, he was seldom out of ministerial office between 1906 and 1932. As foreign minister 1925-32, he was the architect, with the German chancellor Gustav Stresemann, of the 1925 Locarno Pact (settling Germany's western frontier) and the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact (renouncing war). In 1930 he outlined an early scheme for the political and economic unification of Europe. He shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1926 with Stresemann for their work for European reconciliation.

A law graduate, initially attracted to the syndicalism of Ferdinand Pelloutier and then to Jean Jaurès's socialism, Briand's subsequent nationalism gave way to pacifist convictions in the 1920s.