Gamelin is absolutely useless. The troops are all underground in that wretched Maginot Line, and completely demoralized. They should be in armour, bu… - Pierre Laval

I have always had simple ideas in politics. People take me for a shyster, but they don't know me. What I do is so simple that it looks to those who don't understand like something very complicated.

Well, it was unfortunate for us all that he <nowiki>[</nowiki>Ramsay MacDonald<nowiki>]</nowiki> refused to face the unpalatable fact of Abyssinia at Stresa, because Mussolini mistook his silence for agreement instead of imbecility; and his subsequent disillusion threw him into the arms of Germany, with the result that we lost Austria, and with it the whole of central Europe.
Now, Mr. Boothby, I want to tell you that I think this war is a great mistake. If we had come to terms with Mussolini, as I wanted to do, we might have held Germany. That is no longer possible. We have given most of Europe to Hitler. Let us try to hold on to what we have got left. I am a peasant from the Auvergne. I want to keep my farm, and I want to keep France. Nothing else matters now... Make peace at once. Those people, have no idea of what they are up against.

Whether, in the last resort, Germany wins the war or not, we now have less choice than ever. We must reach an agreement with her... I don't believe in the permanence or even the long life of Nazism. In fifteen or twenty years' time – and that's nothing in history – Europe will have a new thirst for freedom. If the French flame has been kept alight, albeit dimly, it is to her that they will come to rekindle the extinguished torches...for there will be no one else.