The Tragic Career of Marius Moutet.

Marius Moutet is best known as France's Popular Front Colonial Minister in 1936-8. Yet the importance of his tenure in the same office in the later years of 1946-7, when French debates and decisions on colonial policy were even more momentous, has often been underestimated. This essay examines Moutet's role in defining France's post-Second World War colonial policy and in applying it during his second ministry, and shows how he tried to shape French policy in Indochina during the early stages of the French-Viet Minh conflict. In both instances Moutet was attacked by those who found his pre-war colonial liberalism anachronistic, and his policies were systematically sabotaged by fellow ministers who found them weak and vacillating. His ministerial career ended with him being driven from office, with his decades-long reputation as a reformer in colonial policy in tatters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]