Aristide Pierre Henri Briand

Aristide Briand was the 55th Prime Minister of France and the winner of Nobel Peace Prize in 1926 due to his efforts for international cooperation and focusing on reconciliation politics during the war. He served as the Prime Minister of France eleven terms.

Mr. Briand was born in 1862 in Nates and died in 1932 in Paris. He finished his school education at Lycee of Nates (currently Lycée Georges Clemenceau). Later he started studying law in Paris, then moved to politics. He started writing articles for the Syndicalist journal of Le Peuple and directed the Lanterne for a while. In 1904, with Jean Jaures he founded L’Humanite daily newspaper.

In 1901, Briand became the secretary-general of the Socialist Party and in 1902, he was elected as a Deputy. In 1905, he drafted a law of separation of church and state and succeed to implement the reform. He was later appointed as the minister of public education in 1906.

In July 1909, he became the Prime Minister and after that, he was selected several periods as the Prime Minister of France until 1929. Among his most important works along with Gustav Stresemann of Germany, Austen Chamberlain of Britain, is the establishment of Pact of Locarno agreement in 1925 that has resulted peace between Germany, France, Belgium, Britain and Italy. Therefore, in 1926, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Gustav Stresemann, the Foreign Minister of Germany.

The Agreement of Kellogg-Briand Pact also known as Pact of Paris in 1928 is his other achievement as the most oriented peacekeeping effort after World War l. Through this agreement, 60 nations agreed to eliminate war as an instrument of national policy.