he received a government scholarship to study law and political economy at Sciences Po in Paris. He also began assembling a group of fifty civil servants who wanted to replace the absolute monarchy with a constitutional monarchy while studying. He earned a law PhD and a Higher diploma of economy. In 1927 he returned to Siam that year to work for the Ministry of Justice. He quickly rose in rank, and was granted the royal title Luang Praditmanutham (). Political career People's Party On 24 June 1932, Khana Ratsadon, the tiny People's Party, with Pridi as the leader of the civilian faction, carried out a lightning coup that abruptly ended 150 years of absolute monarchy under the Chakri dynasty. In 1933, Pridi published the Draft National Economic Plan, also known as the "Yellow cover dossier", a radical economic plan calling for the nationalisation of land, public employment, and social security. The plan was rejected by royalists and some ex-members of Khana Ratsadon, who shut down parliament and the judiciary. Pridi was accused of being a communist and went into exile. It is noted, however, that many ideas he proposed finally came into existence, such as the national bank and National Economic Council, and the conservatives only agreed to Pridi in founding national lottery. Khana Ratsadon ministerial posts Pridi returned to Thailand in 1934 to found Thammasat University as an open university, before assuming the posts of Minister of the Interior that year, Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1935, and Minister of Finance in 1938. As Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1936 to 1937, Pridi signed treaties revoking the extraterritorial rights of 12 countries. With these treaties, Thailand was able to regain independence with regard to legal jurisdiction and taxation for the first time since unequal treaties were signed under duress during the reign of King Rama IV. Although he had been friends with Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram during the early days of the People's Party, the two fell out in subsequent years. Pridi was anti-Japanese as well as left-leaning. He opposed many of Phibun's militaristic policies which tended to be more conciliatory toward the Japanese. The antipathy between the two would define how Thailand fared in World War II when Japan was on the march in Asia. Free Thai movement On 8 December 1941, Imperial Japan launched attacks on Southeast Asia and the Allied possessions in the region, opening the