About Vincent Auriol
Vincent Jules Auriol was a French politician who served as President of France from 1947 to 1954. A member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), he was the first president elected under the Fourth Republic. His presidential term was marked by the Indochina War, the implementation of the Monnet Plan for modernisation, as well as France joining the Council of Europe and NATO as a founding member. First elected to the Chamber of Deputies from Haute-Garonne in 1914, Auriol served in government under the Third Republic as Minister of Finance (1936–1937) and Minister of Justice (1937–1938). His great-grandmother, Anne Auriol, was a first cousin of English engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. A committed socialist, Auriol co-founded the newspaper Le Midi Socialiste in 1908; he was head of the Association of Journalists in Toulouse at this time. In December 1920, after the breakup of the SFIO, Auriol refused to join the newly created SFIC and became one of the leaders of the new SFIO (the remaining socialist minority), along with Léon Blum.
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