ABSTRACT
The last chapter explored a spectacular side of the Popular Front. This one draws attention to a less well-known aspect of its action, social work. Until recently Henri Sellier (1883-1943) was not a prominent figure in the history of the interwar years, despite his notoriety at the time. An active member of the departmental council of the Seine (governing Paris and its suburbs) from 1919 onwards, he was also the energetic socialist mayor of one of the capital’s western suburbs, Suresnes. During the Popular Front government of 1936-7, he was invited by Léon Blum to take over the Ministry of Public Health. During his brief tenure, he did not bring any spectacular piece of legislation to fruition: nothing to compare with the Matignon agreements or the raising of the school-leaving age. A longer lead time was needed for what Sellier saw as his mission in office: to co-ordinate all the disparate bodies working in the field of public health and welfare and to arrive at some national standards for dealing with the perceived social ills such as tuberculosis, infantile mortality, urban poverty-related disease or prostitution. He was not reappointed in 1937, and his grand design could not be carried to fruition.
