Pierre Mendès France, French lawyer and politician, 143rd Prime Minister of France (born 1907)

Pierre Isaac Isidore Mendès France was a French politician who served as prime minister of France for eight months from 1954 to 1955. As a member of the Radical Party, he headed a government supported by a coalition of Gaullists (RPF), moderate socialists (UDSR), Christian democrats (MRP) and liberal-conservatives (CNIP). Pierre-Mendès France is primarily remembered as the French Prime Minister who was in office at the outbreak of the Algerian independence war in 1954. During his tenure, France initiated close military cooperation with Israel, selling arms and aircraft to the young state. Mendès-France laid the groundwork for France’s military nuclear program and the early transfer of nuclear technology to Israel.

The prime minister of France, officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and leader of its Council of Ministers, although the officeholder does not chair its meetings, as the president does.