In August 1925 he was a parliamentary delegate on the Caillaux mission that went to Washington, D.C., to address the issue of debt between the Allies. In 1926 Aristide Briand appointed Bérenger Ambassador to the United States. His negotiations there led to the Mellon-Berenger Agreement for settling war debts. His collected speeches and articles on this subject were published in 1933. He continued to be involved in Belles Lettres, publishing articles in the "Revue des deux Mondes" and the "Revue de Paris" and directing the periodical "Actualités". Bérenger returned to France in 1928, and was charged by the Finance Committee with a report on the Foreign Affairs budget. As Vice-President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on 12 November 1931 he and Joseph Caillaux questioned the government on the relationship between France and the Soviet Union. Soon after he became President of the Foreign Affairs Committee, holding this position until 1939. On 21 September 1932 he was also appointed nominal delegate of France to the League of Nations. Although hostile to fascism, he advocated a neutral position in the Spanish Civil War. He became increasingly outspoken against the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini. Under the first government of Léon Blum (in office 4 June 1936 – 22 June 1937) Théodore Steeg was appointed head of a commission to study socio-economic conditions in the French colonial empire. The North African sub-committee included other leading figures such as Paul Reynaud, Charles-André Julien and Paul Rivet. Meeting on 8 July 1937, this sub-committee decided to focus on labor conditions in the Maghreb. They were too late to prevent the escalation of widespread and violent labor unrest in the region, which was violently suppressed. Bérenger represented France as the principal delegate at the Évian Conference in July 1938, organized to solve the problem of Jewish refugees from Germany. After the Munich Agreement he intervened with Georges Bonnet, Minister for Foreign Affairs, with the hope of now obtaining a resolution of the Jewish issue, but Hitler remained adamant. In June 1940, he abstained from voting over the delegation of powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain. He retired to Saint-Raphaël, Var, where he died on 18 May 1952. He was an Officer of the Legion of Honor. Works included:  Notes  Citations  Sources