Darlan, Jean François, 1881–1942, French admiral. A career naval officer, he became commander of the French navy in 1939 and joined the Vichy government (see under Vichy) in 1940 as minister o...

Pétain, Henri Philippe, 1856–1951, French army officer, head of state of the Vichy government (see under Vichy). In World War I he halted the Germans at Verdun (1916), thus becoming the most b...

Langevin, Paul, 1872–1946, French physicist and chemist. He was professor of experimental physics at the Collège de France from 1909 and at the École municipale de Physique et de Chimie, Paris...

Mitterrand, François Maurice, 1916–96, French political leader, president of France, 1981–95. Initially a supporter of Pétain's Vichy government during World War II, he joined the Resistance i...

Chautemps, Camille, 1885–1963, French politician. A Radical Socialist leader, he was premier in 1930 and in 1933–34, when the Stavisky Affair (in which he was not directly implicated) caused h...

Bourbonnais, former province, central France, in the northern part of the Massif Central. It was approximately the same area as today's Allier dept. It is a largely arid plateau (except for th...

Lebrun, Albert, 1871–1950, French statesman, last president of the Third Republic. Elected to the chamber of deputies in 1900, he later became a senator and held various cabinet posts. A moder...

Riom, town (1990 pop. 19,302), Puy-de-Dôme dept., S central France, in Auvergne. It has distilleries, tobacco plants, and factories making pharmaceuticals. Of Gallic origin, the Roman Ricomagu...

Doriot, Jacques, 1888–1945?, French collaborator during the German occupation of France in World War II. For many years he served as the mayor of Saint-Denis, a Paris suburb. He was also a Com...

Leahy, William Daniel, 1875–1959, American naval officer and diplomat, b. Hampton, Iowa. He served in the Spanish-American War, in the Philippines, then in Nicaragua (1912), in Haiti (1916), i...