Cercle de l'Union interalliée


The cercle de l'Union interalliée, also known as the Cercle interallié, is a private social and dining club established in 1917. The clubhouse is the Hôtel Perrinet de Jars at 33 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, France. It adjoins the British Embassy and an annex of the embassy of Japan.
The club's second president was Ferdinand Foch, Marshal of France, Marshal of the United Kingdom, Marshal of Poland and supreme commander of the Allies of World War I. The club includes royalty and political figures among its international members.

History

The Union Interalliée was founded in 1917, at the time of the official American entry into World War I. This was after the voluntary aviators from the Lafayette Escadrille had come to France to increase the number of those who were fighting for the same cause on French soil.
The founders of the Union Interalliée suggested establishing a place of welcome providing moral and material resources to the officers and personalities of the Allied nations, in order to develop the allied life that had just begun.
Thanks to the support they received from several statesmen, ambassadors and field marshals and the assistance from new collaborators, they founded the Union Interalliée in one of the most beautiful mansions in Paris, the hotel Henri de Rothschild, which had been generously offered to them. In 1920, the club, having set up a real estate company, acquired the building for the equivalent of today's €1,067,143.
The war having ended, the need for the Union Interalliée was apparent to everybody, as it was more necessary than ever to maintain harmony between the people who had fought together. The work that had begun in 1917 received an official consecration in 1920 when the public authorities recognized its importance in diplomatic relations between the allied nations. On 1 June 1920, Marshal Foch became the second president of the Cercle.
In 2004, Chilean-born American interior designer Juan Pablo Molyneux designed the interiors of the clubhouse.

Club founders in 1917

There are a number of reciprocal clubs worldwide including: