About Leon Blum:
André Léon Blum was a French politician, identified with the moderate left, and three times Prime Minister of France. As a Jew, he was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century. He became a disciple of French Socialist leader Jean Jaurès and after 1914, his successor. Blum rejected the class conflict model of Marxist socialism, instead defining socialism as the highest use of the power of the state, under the guidance of well-educated experts like himself, "to define, protect, and guarantee the condition of the working class." As Prime Minister in a "Popular Front" government of the left 1936-37, he provided a series of major economic reforms. Blum declared neutrality in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) to avoid the civil conflict spilling over into France itself. Once out of office in 1938, he denounced the appeasement of Germany. When Germany defeated France in 1940, he became a staunch opponent of Vichy France. As a Jew, he was imprisoned in concentration camps. After the war he resumed a leadership role in French politics until his death in 1950.