Jacques Duclos, 1950s.Meeting of the clandestine French Communist Party (PCF) central committee at Longjumeau, 1943. Duclos is second from right.
Jacques Duclos (2 October 1896 – 25 April 1975) was a French Communist politician and member of Communist International (Comintern)[1] who played a key role in French politics from 1926, when he entered the French National Assembly after defeating Paul Reynaud, until 1969, when he won a substantial portion of the vote in the presidential elections.
Upon France's defeat in 1940, Duclos, the most senior PCF official in France, engaged in negotiations with the Nazi authorities with a view to legalising the Communist Party (banned following the signature of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the declaration of war) as well as requesting permission to restart publication of the PCF daily (L'Humanité) (banned by the French government for the same reasons). The negotiations did not succeed but hurt the PCF's post-war credibility among the populace.
After 1950, Thorez's health faltered, but Duclos remained one of the most influential members of the Party. He was acting Secretary General from 1950 to 1953 in Thorez's absence and was instrumental in eliminating his rival André Marty from the Party's leadership. Waldeck Rochet's own failing health prompted Duclos to run as the Party's presidential candidate in the 1969 election, scoring 21.27% of the vote, the highest ever for a communist presidential candidate in France. He died in Montreuil on 25 April 1975 at age 78.
References
^Drachkovitch, Milorad M. (1973). Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern. Stanford University: Hoover Press. p. 103. ISBN978-0-8179-8403-8.
^"Duclos, Jacques". A Dictionary of Political Biography (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2009. ISBN9780199569137.