Editing Pierre Mendès France (section)

==Fourth Republic==
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In 1947, after democratic French politics resumed under the [[French Fourth Republic|Fourth Republic]], Mendès France was re-elected to the National Assembly. He first tried to form a government in June 1953, but was unable to gain the numbers in the Assembly. From 1950 he had been a consistent opponent of [[French colonial empires|French colonialism]], and by 1954 France was becoming hopelessly embroiled in major colonial conflicts: the [[First Indochina War]] and the [[Algerian War of Independence]]. When French forces were defeated by the [[Vietnam]]ese Communists at [[Battle of Dien Bien Phu|Dien Bien Phu]] in June 1954, the government of [[Joseph Laniel]] resigned, and Mendès France formed a government with support from the centre-right.

Mendès France immediately negotiated an agreement with [[Ho Chi Minh]], the Vietnamese Communist leader. There was, he said, no choice but total withdrawal from [[French Indochina|Indochina]], and the Assembly supported him by 471 votes to 14. Nevertheless, nationalist opinion was shocked, and Roman Catholic opinion opposed abandoning the Vietnamese believers to Communism. A tirade of abuse, much of it [[Antisemitism|anti-Semitic]], was directed at Mendès France. [[Jean-Marie Le Pen]], then a [[Poujadist]] member of the Assembly, described his "patriotic, almost physical repulsion" for Mendès France.

Undeterred, Mendès France next came to an agreement with [[Habib Bourguiba]], the nationalist leader in [[Tunisia]], for the independence of that colony by 1956, and began discussions with the nationalist leaders in [[Morocco]] for a French withdrawal. He also favoured concessions to the nationalists in [[Algeria]]; but the presence of a million ''[[Pied-noir]]s'' there left the colonial power no easy way to extricate itself from that situation. The future [[mercenary]] [[Bob Denard]] was convicted in 1954 and sentenced to fourteen months in prison for an assassination attempt against Mendès France.<ref name=BBC_Denard>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7044019.stm Obituary: Bob Denard] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171223070355/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7044019.stm |date=23 December 2017 }}, [[BBC]], 14 October 2007</ref>

Mendès France hoped that the Radical Party would become the party of modernization and renewal in French politics, replacing the SFIO. An advocate of greater [[European integration]], he helped bring about the formation of the [[Western European Union]], and proposed far-reaching economic reform. He also favoured defence co-operation with other European countries, but the National Assembly rejected the proposal for a [[European Defence Community]], mainly because of misgivings about Germany's participation.

His cabinet fell in February 1955. In 1956 he served as Minister of State in the cabinet headed by the SFIO leader [[Guy Mollet]], but resigned over Mollet's handling of the Algerian War,<ref name=BD/> which was coming to dominate French politics. His split over Algeria with [[Edgar Faure]], leader of the conservative wing of the Radical Party, led to Mendès France resigning as party leader in 1957.