Paul-Émile Janson

Paul-Émile Janson (Brussels, 30 May 1872–Buchenwald, 3 March 1944) was a francophone Belgian liberal politician.

Born in Brussels, Janson was the son of liberal statesman Paul Janson (died 1913).^[1] He studied law at the Free University of Brussels (now split into the Université Libre de Bruxelles and theVrije Universiteit Brussel), practised as a lawyer, and also taught at the university. Janson was elected as a liberal to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives in 1910. He held various minister posts including War (1920), Justice (1927-1931; 1932-1934; 1939, 1940) and minister without portfolio (1940-1944). He was made an honorary Minister of State in 1931.

He served as the 30th Prime Minister of Belgium in 1937–1938. In the early part of the Second World War, Janson served as Foreign minister, and as minister with portfolio, in the government of Hubert Pierlot. He remained in France when the government in exile moved to London. In 1943 he was detained by the occupying German forces and incarcerated in the Buchenwald concentration camp. He died there in 1944.^[2][3]

Marie Janson, the first woman to be elected to the Chamber of Representatives in 1921, the mother of Paul-Henri Spaak, the man who directly succeeded him as Prime Minister, was his sister.