Jean Zay

Jean Zay (6 August 1904 – 20 June 1944) was a French freemason politician. He served as Minister of National Education and Fine Arts from 1936 until 1939. He was imprisoned by the Vichy government from August 1940 until he was murdered in 1944.

Zay was born in Orléans, in the départment of Loiret, about 130 kilometres (81 mi) south of Paris. His father, Leon Zay, descended from a Jewish family from Metz, but was born and died in Orléans, where he was the director of a radical socialist regional newspaper, Le Progrès du Loiret. His mother Alice Chartres was a teacher.

Zay was educated at the Lycée Pothier in Orléans, and became a lawyer in 1928. He was politically active from his early days, joining the Radical Party aged 21.

With his wife, he had two daughters, Catherine Martin-Zay, and Hélène Mouchard-Zay (born 1940).

In May 1932 he was elected to the French parliament as député to represent Loiret, for the Radical Socialist Party. He defeated the incumbent representative of the Popular Democratic Party, Maurice Berger. He became one of the Jeunes Turcs (Young Turks) who wanted to renew the Radical Party, and was instrumental in the party joining the Popular Front in 1935. After the 1936 election, he was the Minister of National Education and Fine Arts from June 1936. While serving in his position, he extended the school leaving age and introduced a common curriculum in elementary schools.

In 1938, Jean Zay proposed the creation of an international film event in France, which was planned to debut in Cannes in 1939. Due to the outbreak of the Second World War, the inauguration of the Cannes Film Festival was postponed until 1946.

He resigned as minister in 1939 to join the French Army on the outbreak of the Second World War, serving as a second lieutenant attached to the headquarters of the Fourth Army. He remained a depute until 1942, and he was given leave to attend the last session of the French Parliament, held in Bordeaux in June 1940. After the invasion of France by Nazi Germany in 1940, he was one of the passengers aboard the vessel Massilia that left from Bordeaux bound for Casablanca on 21 June 1940, with the intention of forming a resistance government in North Africa. He was arrested in August 1940, for desertion, and returned to France where he was held at the military prison in Clermont-Ferrand.

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