NEW FRENCH LEADER WAS IMPRISONED

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5320, 5 February 1947, Page 7

NEW FRENCH LEADER WAS IMPRISONED

Mr. Vincent Auriol, the new.Presidetn of Fhrance, has been described as a man of medium height, with a strong chin, dark Gallic features, and'imhued' with the lawyer's neatness of mind but not of dress. For many years prior to the war, in which he refused to compromise with the Germans or support Marshal Petain, his .bulging old brown suit" was familiar in the Chamber. The President of the Republic was born on August 27, 1884, at Rovel, in the Pyrenees, and, as a young man, practised as a lawyer in Toulouse. Since 1,904 he has been editor of the Socialist newspaper Le Midi. First elected to the Chamber in 1914 for Muret, he was re-eleeted again and again for the same constituency. In the Chamber he was general secretary of the Socialist Group. Ministerial office was achieved in 1936 when M. Blum gave him the Finance Ministry. The following year he became Minister of Justice. In 1940 M. Auriol voted against the proposat-to vest full powers in Petain and he was imprisoned first at Vellevoison, in the scuth of France, and later at Vans. Although released under police surveillance, he escaped to Londop, and eventually reeached Algiers, where he took part in the work of the Constitutional Assem-hly. M. Auriol became president of the latter body in June, 1946, and of late has presided over the National Assembly. Now he has become President of the Rephblic, the highest office in France. A member of the exeCutive committee of the Socialist Party, he is also, political director of the Agence de Presse de la Liberte. He is considered orthodox as a financier.