Louis Auguste Blanqui ( 8 February 1805 – 1 January 1881) was a French socialist and agitator who believed that socialism should be achieved by a revolution of small groups of secret conspirators. This elite group should then install a dictatorship and wipe out all those opposed to their rule.
Blanqui studied law and medicine before becoming a member of the Carbonari society. He was arrested for treason in 1839 and sentenced to life in prison for his part in republican uprisings against Louise Philippe I of France. His organization “League of the Just” had taken part in the revolt.
He was released in 1848 and returned to agitating. He was arrested and released twice more in his life. He was in jail when the Paris Commune insurrection occurred but was charged along with the other conspirators. Promptly released he returned to agitating and writing until his death of a stroke in 1881.
Pierre Jean Marie Laval ( 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician who served as the Prime Minister (1931-1932 and 1935-1936) during the Third Republic. As a young lawyer he gained fame for defending striking labor unionists. Laval was a socialist and member of the French Section of the Worker’s International.
During his second tenure as Prime Minister Laval’s government was dissolved due to his handling of the Walwal Incident (1935). Benito Mussolini‘s Italian forces had invaded Abyssinia, an Ethiopian territory. The League of Nations sanctioned Italy but Mussolini invaded anyway. Italy quit the League and made trade arrangements with France and the United Kingdom. The French considered Laval’s role as appeasement of Mussolini.
After France’s surrender to Nazi Germany in 1940 Laval adopted the principles of National Socialism and served in the Vichy French government under Paul Renaud and Phillipe Petain. He was released from service but after an anti Bolshevism speech he was reappointed Prime Minister of Vichy France. During this time he was involved in the deportation of Jews to Germany. He negotiated that only Jews who were not French citizens should be deported, however it was noted he intervened to stop Jews attempting to get US visas.
Laval claimed that he had ordered children to be deported along with their parents because families should not be separated, and “children should remain with their parents”. According to Paldiel, when Boegner argued that the children would almost certainly die, Laval replied that “not one [Jewish child] must remain in France”. It was believed that Laval also attempted to prevent Jewish children gaining visas to the United States that had arranged by the American Friends Service Committee and that Laval was committed less to expelling Jewish children from France than to making sure they reached Nazi camps – Wikipedia
In 1943 Laval became a leader of La Milice under Joseph Darnand. La Milice was a French paramilitary organization aligned with the Nazi occupying force in France. They helped hunt down and arrest members of the French Resistance and committed summary executions and assassinations. They also assisted in finding Jews to be deported to German concentration camps.
Laval was tried for war crimes and executed in 1945