Born in Nanterre, Hauts-de-Seine, Barbu was deported to Buchenwald concentration camp during the Second World War.
Barbu won election in 1945 in the Drôme for a small left-wing party.
In the 1965 French presidential election he ran as an independent candidate and obtained 1.15% of the votes.
Barbu claimed to have been mistreated by the press and establishment, and wept at the end of one of his speeches.
[1] Barbu is remembered as one of a number of widely diverse candidates — from both left and right — who stood against de Gaulle in 1965.