Guy Mollet

Guy Mollet was a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1956 to 1957. His socialist government took a harder line on the war in Algeria and against Arab leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser who supported the revolutionaries. Israel, which was intensively waging guerrilla war against Egypt, was seen as one of France's most dependable allies during his tenure.¹

Mollet agreed in 1955 to begin secretly selling high-performance French bombers to Israel, with sales arranged by Shimon Peres directly between defense ministries, bypassing diplomatic channels. Arms continued to flow from France to Israel for the next twelve years.¹

Mollet was deeply involved in the secret planning for the Suez Crisis in 1956, alongside Israel and Britain. After the British and French ceased fire under pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union, Mollet felt a sense of guilt and shame for France's failure to uphold its commitments to Israel. This led him to agree to help Israel build a nuclear reactor and chemical reprocessing plant, a deal he reportedly felt he "owed" to them. He also formally cleared the way for the French nuclear weapons program by establishing a committee on the military use of atomic energy.¹