Popular Front

Paul Langevin was born in 1872, and entered the School of Physics and Chemistry in 1888, where Pierre Curie exerted a decisive influence on his life. Barely out of the Ecole Normale, he threw himself into the struggle against injustices and tyranny which was being fought round the Dreyfus case. 'He was sent by the city of Paris to work for a year at Cambridge with J. J. Thomson. and there he made a lifelong friendship with Rutherford. In 1902 he became Professor of Physics at the College de France. 1914 found him among the intellectuals who formed a regular group at meetings addressed by Jean Jaures, where he found his political outlook beginning to crystallise. When students were being extensively enrolled in 1920 as strike-breakers. Langevin publicly protested, and began a period of close association with the working-class movement which was to last for the rest of his life. In 1925 he became head of the School of Physics and Chemistry of the University of Paris. With Romain Rolland and Henri Barbusse, he was one of the initiators of the World Committee for Peace and against fascism which was formed in 1932, and which later played so important a part in the Reichstag Fire Trial and the international support for Dimitrov. From then on his activity was closely linked with the Popular Front.