Jules-Louis Breton (1 April 1872 – 2 August 1940) was an inventor and a French politician. He was a representative of the French Assembly, and the proponent of the Breton-Prétot machine, a device developed in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

from November 1914, intended to cut a way through barbed wire on the battlefield. It was developed with an engineer named Prétot, but did not progress beyond the experimental stage.

Biography

Breton was born on 1 April 1872 in

Courrières Courrières () is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France. Geography An ex-coalmining commune, now a light industrial and farming town, situated some northeast of Lens, at the junction of the D46 and D ...

, Pas-de-Calais. He was a

Socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

with Anarchist tendencies, and as a

Natalist Natalism (also called pronatalism or the pro-birth position) is an ideology that promotes the reproduction of human life as the preeminent objective of being human. Compare: The term, as it relates to the belief itself, comes from the French wor ...

, endeavoured to giving more freedom to women. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he was France's Undersecretary of State for Inventions for National Defense. and later founded and directed the National Research and Invention Ministry.''Irresistible empire'' by Victoria De Grazia p.426 He was also Minister of Hygiene under President Millerand in 1920. Breton was the founder and first director of the National Board of Scientific and Industrial Research and Inventions (ORNI: ''Office national des recherches scientifiques et industrielles et des Inventions''), created on 29 December 1922 and dissolved on 24 May 1938, predecessor of the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...

(CNRS). In this role he founded the

Salon des arts ménagers Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...

(Household Arts Exhibition), which showcased domestic appliances. He died on 2 August 1940 in Meudon Bellevue.

References

1872 births 1940 deaths People from Courrières Politicians from Hauts-de-France Republican-Socialist Party politicians Government ministers of France Members of the 7th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 8th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 9th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 10th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 11th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 12th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic French Senators of the Third Republic Senators of Cher (department) Members of the French Academy of Sciences {{Cher-politician-stub