Pierre Mendès France

Pierre Isaac Isidore Mendès France was a French politician who served as prime minister of France for eight months from 1954 to 1955. As a member of the Radical Party, he headed a government supported by a coalition of Gaullists, moderate socialists, Christian democrats and liberal-conservatives. His main priority was ending the Indochina War, which had already cost 92,000 lives, with 114,000 wounded and 28,000 captured on the French side.