René Jean Pleven (; 15 April 190113 January 1993) was a notable political figure of the French Resistance and Fourth Republic. An early associate of Jean Monnet then member of the Free French led by Charles de Gaulle, he took a leading role in colonial and financial matters including the Gaullist takeover of French Equatorial Africa in 1940, the creation of the Caisse Centrale de la France Libre in 1941, the Brazzaville Conference in 1944, and the nationalization of the largest French banks in 1945.
In 1946, Pleven broke with De Gaulle and helped found the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR), a political party that was meant to be a successor to the wartime Resistance movement. He served as prime minister twice in the early 1950s and is remembered for the Pleven Plan for a European Defence Community, which he proposed in October 1950 in coordination with Monnet.
Early life
René Pleven was born in Rennes on 15 April 1901 as the son of a commissioned officer and director of studies at the Special Military School of St. Cyr. After studying law at the University of Paris, he failed the exam for the financial corps of the civil service, so he decided to move to the United States, Canada, and Great Britain to work there. He rose to become a telephone company executive. In 1924, he married Anne Bompard.
Wartime
Immediately after the breakout of the Second World War, he was in charge of encouraging the construction of aircraft for the Allies in the United States and of purchasing planes for France. but then a year later, he joined Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces, which resisted the Nazi-allied French Vichy Regime. Pleven suggested a political union between Britain and France, with a unification of sovereignty and defensive forces. The plan, supported by Winston Churchill, Paul Reynaud and Charles de Gaulle was not approved due to the opposition of the French armistice with Germany. Pleven helped rally support for Free France in French Equatorial Africa. Returning to London, where de Gaulle and his forces were exiled, in 1941, he became national commissioner for the economy, finance, the colonies and foreign affairs of the French National Committee. In this role, he presided over a 1944 conference in Brazzaville, which opted for a more liberal policy towards the colonies.
He then became Defense Minister again. His proposal for a European Defense Community, in which to integrate a re-armed Germany, known as the Pleven Plan, was defeated by the Gaullists, communists, and socialists. He also advocated a hard hand in defending French colonial rule in Indochina. In 1953, he resigned as chairman of the UDSR after his party supported the Vietnam peace talks. Being Minister of Defense from 1952 to 1954, he was responsible when the French lost the Battle of Dien Bien Phu initiating the crumbling of French hegemony in the whole region. Instead, he became the Fourth Republic's last Foreign Minister in 1958.