French socialist hero Jean Jaurès – a picture from the past

On 31 July 1914, Jean Jaurès – the French socialist leader, co-founder of the newspaper L'Humanité and long-time member of the Chamber of Deputies – was assassinated in Cafe du Croissant in Paris, by a 29-year-old nationalist called Raoul Villian who believed that Jaurès' opposition to the war played into the hands of imperial Germany. Jaurès was a committed pacifist who tried to promote understanding between France and Germany in the months leading up to war