Léon Blum

This chapter offers a fresh reading of the intellectual work of one of the towering figures of French modern history. By connecting the ideas of Léon Blum to Jewish concepts of justice in the present, and by situating Blum in the multi-faceted heritage of French socialism that included both Jaurès and Marcel Sembat but also the idealist Malon, it suggests that concepts of the present might be a deep-rooted connecting theme throughout Blum’s intellectual reflections on socialism, from his Nouvelles Conversations de Goethe avec Eckermann, through articles and journalism in the interwar years, to the famous essay À l’Échelle humaine, written in captivity in 1941. It assesses Blum’s reflections on socialism less through his political leadership in the Popular Front government of 1936 and more through personal moments when he was himself ‘out of time’ in the Second World War.