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Music Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War, Episode 65, The Third Republic, Part 5, Popular Front in Power.

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The French elections of late April and early May, 1936, resulted in a majority for the Popular

Front coalition, with 378 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, versus just 236 for the opposition.

Within the Popular Front, the SFIO would have the largest number of

deputies at 149, then the radicals at 110, and then the communists at 72. The rest of the seats were

made up of smaller leftist parties, and then some independent centrist who voted with the Popular

Front. The resulting government was formed with a socialist

at its head, Leon Bloom. He was the first socialist Prime Minister of France and also the first

Jew. This government would be in place for just over a year, and during that time it would

attempt to both satisfy its supporters with the social reforms that were part of the socialist

...