Virgile Barel
French politician (1889–1979)
Virgile Barel (1889–1979) was a French Communist politician. He served as a member of the National Assembly from 1936 to 1940, from 1945 to 1951, from 1956 to 1958, and from 1967 to 1973. The Boulevard Virgile Barel in the Saint Roch neighbourhood of Nice was named in his honour.
Biography
Virgile Barel was born in Drap, a village in the Paillon Valley, to a father who was a saddler and a mother who was a seamstress.
He entered the École normale in Nice in 1906 and graduated at the top of his class in 1909. He was appointed to Breil, then to Castellar, Alpes-Maritimes and Menton.
Having read Henri Barbusse Le Feu and deeply affected by his experience of war, he joined the SFIO in 1918, which was only accepted in 1919, after the war, due to “the request of the leaders of the Nice section of the Party not to put at too much risk an officer in the army.” A non-commissioned officer, then an officer during the First World War I, he was wounded three times in combat. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Croix de la Légion d'Honneur.
In favor of breaking with the socialism of the “Sacred Union” and “class collaboration,” he joined the Communist International. As a schoolteacher, he was active in the ranks of the General Confederation of Unitary Labor (CGTU) and wrote for the union newsletter Notre Arme.
The public source identifies “Virgile Barel” as french politician (1889–1979). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Virgile, Barel and French.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Virgile Barel”, the useful work is to connect “french politician (1889–1979)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3560609. VIAF identifies the subject as 34566076. The Library of Congress control number is n96090112. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1979, 1936 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “Virgile Barel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.