Ernest Lafont

Louis-Ernest Lafont (26 July 1879 in Lyon – 7 May 1946 in Paris ) was a French socialist politician. Lafont represented Loire in the French National Assembly between 1914 and 1928, and then Hautes-Alpes between 1928 and 1936. He served as Minister of Public Health 1935-1936.

A lawyer by profession from a bourgeois background, Lafont was a graduate of the Ecole des sciences politiques and a lawyer at the Paris Court of Appeals. In 1910 he contested the parliamentary elections, but trailed behind the winning candidate by merely 500 votes. In 1912 he became the mayor of the socialist local government in Firminy. During this period Lafont was able to mobilize sizeable support from the middle class of Firminy, particularly through campaigns against alcoholism and prostitution. However, he was expelled from Russia on Trotsky's orders. Lafont had been accused of contacts with the Polish Socialist Party. Lafont did however become a member of the French Communist Party in the same year.

Lafont joined the Socialist-Communist Union. He was the sole candidate of that party elected in the 1928 French National Assembly election. In the late 1920s, Lafont was one of the more radical profiles in the League for Human Rights, advocating labour rights and pacifism. Lafont's cabinet tenures lasted between 1 and 7 June 1935 in the Bouisson cabinet, and between 7 June 1935 and 24 January 1936 in Laval's government. His participation in the national government led to him being expelled socialist parliamentary group. In 1936, he lost his parliamentary seat to the SFIO candidate Auguste Muret (the mayor of Gap).

He was married to Zinaida Lafont. Lafont died on 7 May 1946 in the Seventh arrondissement of Paris, at the age of 66.