Daladier, Edouard (1884–1970)

French Radical politician, prime minister in 1933, 1934, and 1938–40, when he signed the Munich Agreement in 1938 (ceding the Sudeten districts of Czechoslovakia to Germany). After declaring war on Germany in September 1939, his government failed to aid Poland and, at home, imprisoned pacificists and communists. After his government resigned in March 1940, Daladier was arrested by the Vichy authorities, tried with Léon Blum at Riom in 1942, then deported to Germany, 1943–45. He was re-elected as a deputy 1946–58.

Son of a baker and an aggrégé in history and geography, Daladier came into politics after military service in World War I. Elected deputy for Vaucluse 1919–40, he was a minister in the centre-left coalitions of 1924–26 and 1932–33, and then brought his party into the Popular Front (with socialists and communists) from 1934, serving as minister of defence, 1936–38. As prime minister, he shifted to a centre-right alliance.