Pierre Mendès-France was a French politician who served as Prime Minister of [[France]] from 1954 to 1955. In late 1954, his coalition government granted authority for a nuclear weapons planning group to be formed inside the French Atomic Energy Commission, bringing senior officials of the ministry of defense into nuclear planning for the first time.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 3.