Paul-Émile Naggiar (3 May 1883 – 28 August 1961) was a French diplomat.
Consul in Shanghai Naggiar was born in Cairo where his father was serving as a diplomat. His Jewish family had originated in Baghdad before immigrating to France. He was educated at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris and at the Sorbonne. Naggiar joined the Quai d'Orsay and was appointed the deputy French consul in Shanghai in 1912. From 1915 to 1917, he served as the French consul in Shanghai, placing him in charge of the French Concession as the district of downtown Shanghai that was a French colony was known. He served as the French consul-general in Montreal from 1921 to 1926.
In 1926, Naggair returned to Shanghai as the Consul-general. The year 1927 was an especially troubled time in Shanghai as the city was captured by the Kuomintang and Chinese Communists during the Great Northern Expedition. Shanghai had been ruled by the warlord General Sun Chuanfang until March 1927, and it was widely believed the new rulers in Shanghai would seek to end all of the foreign concessions in China. There had been a number of violent clashes in other Chinese cities as both Britain and Japan forcefully sought to uphold their extra-territorial rights in China against the demands of both the Communists and the Kuomintang for the end of extra-territorial rights.
In a statement issued on 2 April 1927 to the residents of the French Concession, Naggiar declared: "The forces sent by the French government are sufficient to meet any emergency that might arise." He added: "as many rumours were being circulated in order to weaken the morale of the foreign population it was necessary for all residents to be careful not to take them seriously. Security of life and property inside the Concession would be maintained by the French authorities, responsible to their government, by taking all necessary measures". The area around the French Concession was heavily fortified with a gigantic wall with machine-gun posts and barbed wire severing the Concession from the rest of Shanghai, all the more so because France had never actually signed a treaty with China granting the right for a concession in Shanghai and the French Concession rested entirely upon force majeure. The streets that connected the French Concession to the rest of Shanghai all had gates and guard-posts. Naggair had the French garrison in the Concession reinforced by a brigade of the troupes de marine along with colonial troops from Annam (modern Vietnam). To provide additional support, Naggair apparently made a deal with the Green Gang Triad, the most powerful crime syndicate in China, that the police in the French Concession would protect the opium dens, brothels and gambling houses owned by the Green Gang in exchange for the Green Gang using its power to control the Chinese population of the French Concession. The French Concession, where Chinese law did not apply, was to remain a major base for the Green Gang.
On 12 April 1927, the alliance between the Communists and the Kuomintang came to a violent end, marking the start of a long civil war that would not end until 1949. The Kuomintang and the Green Gang joined forces against the Communists and staged several massacres on the streets of Shanghai. When China embroiled in civil war, Chiang Kai-shek announced that his government was committed to peacefully ending the extra-territorial rights of the foreign powers in China, which for Naggair and the French government in general were a major relief. In 1927, he was promoted to be deputy director of the Asia-Pacific department of the Quai d'Orsay.
Minister in Belgrade Naggiar was a protégé of Alexis St. Léger, the Secretary-General (the number one official) of the Quai d'Orsay. Naggiar was part of an elite group of diplomats whose careers were sponsored by St. Léger that also included René Massigli, Robert Coulondre, Charles Corbin and François Charles-Roux. It was after St. Léger became Secretary-General of the Quai d'Orsay that Naggiar's career began to advance. From 1933 to 1935, Naggiar served as the French minister-plenipotentiary to Yugoslavia. In March 1933, King Alexander rejected Naggiar's advice to end the royal dictatorship and turn Yugoslavia into a federation, saying it would result in anarchy and civil war. During his time in Belgrade, Naggiar repeatedly complained that the French policy of imposing high tariffs on Yugoslav products was weakening French influence in Yugoslavia, all the more so as Germany was all too willing to import Yugoslav agricultural products to feed its people. Ever since the early 1920s, French companies had dominated the automobile and aircraft markets in Yugoslavia with the vast majority of aircraft and automobiles in Yugoslavia being French imports. Yugoslavia was a mostly rural nation and food was its largest export. Naggiar charged that Yugoslavia was falling into the German economic sphere of influence, and inevitably would also fall into the German political sphere of influence as well. In response, Naggiar was told that French farmers disliked competing with Yugoslav farmers in their home market and that Yugoslav farmers did not vote in French elections. In common with the other French minister-plenipotentiaries who served in Belgrade, Naggiar found his positing to be a frustrating one as he watched Yugoslavia fall into the German sphere of influence while his advice was ignored in Paris.
The French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou had a policy of seeking strengthen France's alliances in Eastern Europe. Thought 1934, Naggiar repeatedly invited King Alexander to visit France to meet Barthou in order to strengthen the Franco-Yugoslov alliance, a trip the king was notably reluctant to undertake out of the fear of being assassinated. After surviving several assassination attempts, Alexander did not like to leave the safety of the Royal Palace in Belgrade. When Alexander did agree to visit France, Naggiar wrote to Paris that the French police had to take "absolutely special measures" to protect the king. Naggiar was present when on 9 October 1934 King Alexander of Yugoslavia landed in Marseille to be greeted by Barthou. Naggiar saw both Barthou and King Alexander assassinated later that day during a coach ride down the streets of Marseille. After the dual assassinations, Naggiar returned to Belgrade. The Yugoslav Foreign Minister Bogoljub Jevtić confronted him with evidence that the assassins had been working in the pay of Italy and Hungary, leading him to tell Naggier: "The abominable crime of Marseille proves that political assassination is now one of the methods used by certain governments. If we want to keep the peace in Europe, we must put an end to this scandal once and for all". The new French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval wanted an understanding with Benito Mussolini, and was not willing to confront Rome over the assassinations despite the ample evidence that the assassins were indeed working for Italy. Naggiar was forced to tell his hosts that France was not interested in exploring who was ultimately responsible for the murders. The matter was referred to the League of Nations whose committee of experts ignored all of the evidence that implicated Italian officials in the dual assassinations such as a number of phone calls the assassins made to Rome and instead issued a report that mildly criticized Hungary for providing the forged Czechoslovak passports that allowed the assassins to travel to France. In 1935, Milan Stojadinović became the Yugoslav prime minister. Stojadinović charged that the Yugoslav-French relationship was a highly unequal one with French tariffs keeping Yugoslav agricultural products out while French manufacturers dominated the industrial market of Yugoslavia. Stojadinović came to view closer economic relations with Germany as Yugoslavia's salvation from the Great Depression, and moved Yugoslavia closer to the Reich.
Minister In Prague From 3 June 1935 to 26 March 1936, Naggiar served as the French minister-plenipotentiary to Czechoslovakia. During his time in Prague, Naggiar tried to effect a reconciliation between France's two quarreling Eastern European allies, Poland and Czechoslovakia. In January 1936, Naggiar reported to Paris that the Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš was highly worried about the possibility that Germany might remilitarize the Rhineland in the near-future. As long as the Rhineland was demilitarized, there was a possibility of French offensive into western Germany should the Reich invade Czechoslovakia, which France signed an alliance with in 1924. If the Rhineland was remilitarized, Germany would be able to fortify the Franco-German border to block any French offensive and shift the entire might of the Wehrmacht against Czechoslovakia, which was the subject was of such concern in Prague.
Ambassador in Nanking
Naggiar then served as the French ambassador to China. During his time in China, he was supportive of French efforts to assist with the modernization of China. It was felt by St. Léger that a stronger China would be more able to resist Japan, and that in turn this would protect the French colony of Indochina from Japan. However, Naggiar felt that France should be careful not to provoke Japan too much as believed that China was a very backward nation that would considerable time to modernize.
Ambassador in Moscow Arrival in Moscow In October 1938, Coulondre-who had been serving as the French ambassador in Moscow-was sent to Berlin. Naggiar was sent to replace Coulondre and arrived in Moscow in February 1939. Naggiar was known as an advocate of closer ties with the Soviet Union to create a counterbalance to Germany. On 8 February 1939, Naggiar first met the Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov. Litvinov, a sophisticated diplomat who spoke fluent French and English, told Naggiar that his country was willing to co-operate with Britain and France to uphold collective security under the banner of the League of Nations, but that "we are not going to beg". The Soviet account, though not the French account, of the meeting had Naggiar saying to Litvinov that he was opposed to the "capitulationist policy" of his government. The next day, Naggiar met the deputy foreign commissar, Vladimir Potemkin, who complained that French foreign policy in Eastern Europe under the Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet was too passive. Naggiar protested that this was a "premature" conclusion to draw, and that France was still engaged in Eastern Europe. Upon reading Naggiar's reports, Bonnet sent "an audacious cable" to Moscow that claimed that he upheld the principle of collective security during the Sudetenland crisis, a message that Naggiar felt was painful to hand over to Litvinov.