Chamber of Deputies in 1936 as a delegate from Angoulême, and at first supported the Popular Front led by Blum before denouncing "Communist infiltration" of it. After Blum's replacement by Édouard Daladier in 1938, which marked the end of the Popular Front, Déat participated in the "Anti-Communist Rally." In an article published on 4 May 1939 entitled Why Die for Danzig?, published in the newspaper L'Œuvre, Déat argued that France should no go to war for Poland if the Danzig crisis resulted in war. There, he argued that France should avoid war with Germany if the latter seized Poland – the publication caused a widespread controversy, and propelled Déat to national fame. Déat would collaborate with L'Œuvre during the entire period of Vichy France. Collaborationism A strong supporter of Germany's occupation of northern France in 1940, Déat took up residence in Vichy France, and was initially a supporter of Philippe Pétain. He attempted to create a single party to fully realize the aims of the "Révolution nationale", the official, reactionary ideology of Vichy. Thereafter, he founded in February 1941 the National Popular Rally (RNP) which advocated Collaboration with Nazi Germany and antisemitism. When Vichy, then headed by Pétain, did not become the Fascist state Déat had in mind, he moved to occupied Paris and was funded by the Germans. The Germans forced Déat at first to merge his new party (RNP) with Eugène Deloncle's MSR (Social Revolutionary Movement), a far-right party, the successor of the Cagoule terrorist group. The merger was a failure and Déat later expelled MSR elements from his party, before trying to form a unified front of Collaborationist parties. Déat also founded, along with fellow Collaborationists Jacques Doriot and Marcel Bucard, the Légion des Volontaires Français (LVF), a French unit of the Wehrmacht (later affiliated with the Waffen-SS). While reviewing troops from the LVF with Vichy figure Pierre Laval in Versailles on 27 August 1941, Déat was wounded in an assassination attempt—carried out by French Resistance member Paul Collette. After recovering, he became a supporter of Pierre Laval, who supported more reactionary policies than Pétain and had become prime minister of the Vichy regime in 1942. Under the suggestion of the Germans, Marcel Déat became on 16 March 1944, Minister of Labour and National Solidarity in Laval's cabinet. Exile After the Allied landings at Normandy and the fall of the Vichy government, Déat fled to Germany and