François Darlan

Biography

François Darlan was born in 1881 in Nerac, into a family with long ties to the French Navy; his father was a lawyer who served as Minister of Justice. He graduated from the Ecole navale in 1902, commanded an artillery battery at Verdun during the First World War and afterwards commanded training ships. He rose quickly with the help of political patrons, represented the navy at the London Naval Conference of 1930 and became a vice admiral in 1932.

Leon Blum chose him as Chief of the Naval Staff from the start of 1937, and Darlan used his political connections to win a large shipbuilding programme aimed mainly at Italy. In 1939 he was made Admiral of the Fleet, a rank created for him. When France fell in June 1940 he promised the British that the fleet would never pass to Germany, but he refused to send it to British ports, and he became Minister of Marine in Petain's government.

In February 1941 he became Vice-President of the Council, Foreign Minister and Interior Minister, making him the effective head of the Vichy government and Petain's designated successor. He sought collaboration with Germany, negotiating the Paris Protocols of May 1941 that offered German forces bases in Syria, Tunisia and West Africa. At German insistence he gave up his ministries to Pierre Laval in April 1942, keeping command of the armed forces.

Darlan happened to be in Algiers when the Allies landed in North Africa in November 1942. He ordered French forces there to stop fighting, and Dwight Eisenhower recognised him as High Commissioner of France in Africa, a deal that caused controversy among the Allies. On 24 December 1942 he was shot dead in Algiers by Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, a young monarchist.