Émile Laure

Auguste Marie Émile Laure (June 3, 1881 – 1957) was a French général d'armée (Army general).

He was born June 3, 1881 in Apt, Vaucluse, France. His father was Jacques Ernest Laure (Ingénieur des Arts et Manufactures). His mother was Marguerite Marie Louise Duval. He died in Hyères in 1957. He married Eugénie Marguerite Degasquet in Draguignan on September 27, 1908.

Just prior to World War II, he commanded the 9th Military Region. At the time of the outbreak of World War II, he commanded 9 Corps d'Armée. At the Fall of France, he commanded 8th Army until his capture. After his release, he served the Vichy government as Secretary-General to the Head of State until April 1942.

In 1940, he was the commanding officer of the VIII Armée on the Lorraine front.

He was imprisoned in La Bresse, with four other generals, on June 22, 1940.

Freed following the intervention of Marshal Philippe Pétain, Laure became secretary general of the office of the head of state (secrétaire général du cabinet du chef de l'État) on November 15, 1940 and, in December, secretary general of the Légion française des combattants (LFC), the Vichy veterans organization, replacing Xavier Vallat. He left this position in 1942 after the return of Pierre Laval to the government. He was arrested by the Germans in December 1943 and deported to Germany. He was not released until May 1945.

He was tried in the Épuration légale (French: "legal purge") anti-collaborator trials that followed World War II in France. He was acquitted on July 2, 1948.

His son, René Laure, also became a general in the French army. Another son, Henri Laure, became an admiral.

Publications

• Under the pseudonym Henri-René, Au 3 Bureau du troisième GQG (1917-1919), Plon, Paris, 1921, 279 pages.
• Pétain, biographie du maréchal jusqu'à la capitulation, Berger-Levrault, 1942, 442 pages