Michel Debré

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michel Debré
Michel Debré
150th Prime Minister of France
1st Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic
In office
January 8, 1959 – April 14, 1962
President Charles de Gaulle
Preceded by Charles de Gaulle
Succeeded by Georges Pompidou
Born January 15, 1912
Died August 2, 1996
Political party UNR
Occupation Lawyer
Religion Judaism

Michel Debré (15 January 1912 – 2 August 1996) was a French Gaullist politician. He is considered the "father" of the current Constitution of France, and was the first Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic. He served under President Charles de Gaulle from 1959 to 1962.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Youth and entrance into politics

Michel Debré was born in Paris, the son of the well-known Jewish Professor Robert Debré, who is today considered by many to be the founder of modern Pediatrics. He studied at the Lycée Montaigne and then at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, optained a diploma from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques and became a Professor of Law at the University of Paris. He also joined the École nationale d'équitation (National School of Horse-riding) in Saumur. In 1934, at the age of twenty two, Debré passed the entrance exam and became a member of the Conseil d'État. In 1938 he joined the staff of the Economy Minister Paul Reynaud.

In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Debré was enlisted as a cavalry officer. He was taken prisoner in Artenay in June 1940 during the Battle of France but managed to escape in September of that year. He returned to the Conseil d'État, now under the administration of the Vichy regime, and was sworn in by Marshal Philippe Pétain. In 1942 he was promoted to maître des requêtes by the Minister of Justice Joseph Bartholomew. After the German invasion of the free zone in November 1942, Debré's political pétainisme disappeared, and in February 1943 he became involved in the French Resistance, joining the network Ceux de la Résistance (CDLR).

During the summer of 1943, General de Gaulle gave Debré the task of making a list of prefects, or State representatives, who would replace those of the Vichy regime after the liberation. In August 1944 de Gaulle made him Commissaire de la République for Angers, and in 1945, the Provisional Government charged him with the task of reforming the French Civil Service. Debré created the École nationale d'administration, whose idea was formulated by Jean Zay before the war.

Under the Fourth Republic, Michel Debré at first supported the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance, but defected to the Radical-Socialist Party on the advice of General de Gaulle, who reportedly told him and several other politicians, including Jacques Chaban-Delmas,"Allez au parti radical. C'est là que vous trouverez les derniers vestiges du sens de l'Etat" - "Go to the radical party. It is there that you will find the last vestiges of the meaning of the state".[1] He then joined the Rally of the French People and was elected senator of Indre-et-Loire, a position he held from 1948 to 1958. In 1957, he founded Le Courrier de la colère, a newspaper that fiercely defended French Algeria and called for the return to power of de Gaulle. In the December 2, 1957 issue, Debré wrote:

“ "As long as Algeria is French land, as long as the law of Algeria is French, the battle for Algeria is a legal battle, the insurgency for Algeria is a legal insurgency. ”

This explicit appeal to the insurgency led the socialist politician Alain Savary to write that "In the case of the OAS insurgency, the soldiers are not the culprit; the culprit is Debré."[2]

[edit] Government

Michel Debré became the Garde des Sceaux, or Minister of Justice of France, in the cabinet of General de Gaulle. He played an important role in drafting the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, and on its acceptance he took up the new position of Prime Minister of France, which he held from 1959 to 1962.

After the 1962 Évian Accords referendum that ended the Algerian War and gave auto-determination to Algeria was approved by a nearly ten-to-one margin, de Gaulle replaced him with Georges Pompidou. In November, during the parliamentary elections that followed the dissolution of the National Assembly, he tried to be elected Député for Indre-et-Loire. Defeated, in March 1963 he decided to go to Réunion, an island he had visited for less than twenty four hours on July 10, 1959 when on a trip with President de Gaulle. This choice reflects Debré's fear that what remained of the French colonial empires would follow the path trodden by Algeria - that of independence, which he was not sympathetic to. Debré wanted to take action against the Communist Party of Réunion that had been founded by Paul Vergès a few years earlier. The movement sought self-determination for the island and the removal of its position as an overseas department, and had staged demonstrations on the island a few day earlier. He also noted that the invalidation of Gabriel Macé's election as Mayor of Saint-Denis rendered the post open to the opposition, so he took the decision to win over this mandate.

[edit] Policy in Réunion

Michel Debré arrived on the island of Réunion in April 1963, and succeeded in being elected Député for Saint-Denis on May 6 despite local opposition to the Ordonnance Debré law he had introduced in 1960, that allowed Civil Servants in the overseas departments and territories of France to be put into forced exile on mainland France if suspected of disturbing public order. Supported by those who rejected autonomy, he immediately became the leader of the local right-wing. This state of affairs would be challenged by Pierre Lagourgue that during the next decade.

To justify the departmentalization of the island that occurred in 1946 and to preserve its inhabitants from the temptation of independence, Debré implemented an economic development policy, and opened the island's first family planning center. He proceeded to create numerous canteens in schools that distributed free powdered milk for children. He personally fought to get Paris to create a second high school on the south of the island, in Le Tampon, when at the time there was only one, the Lycée Leconte-de-Lisle, that catered for many thousands of inhabitants.

[edit] Return to the national scene

[edit] Decorations and tributes

Michel Debré had four sons : Vincent Debré (1939-), businessman, François Debré (1942-), journalist, Bernard Debré (born in 1944), urologist and politician, and his fraternal twin, Jean-Louis Debré, politician. See Debré family.

[edit] Debré's Government, 8 January 1959 - 15 April 1962

Changes

Preceded by
Robert Lecourt		 Minister of Justice
1958–1959		 Succeeded by
Edmond Michelet
Preceded by
Pierre Garet		 interim Minister of Reconstruction and Housing
1958		 Succeeded by
—
Preceded by
Vincent Badie		 interim Minister of Veterand and War Victims
1958		 Succeeded by
Edmond Michelet
Preceded by
Charles de Gaulle		 Prime Minister of France
1959–1962		 Succeeded by
Georges Pompidou
Preceded by
André Boulloche		 interim Minister of National Education
1959–1960		 Succeeded by
Louis Joxe
Preceded by
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing		 Minister of Economy and Finance
1966–1968		 Succeeded by
Maurice Couve de Murville
Preceded by
Maurice Couve de Murville		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
1968–1969		 Succeeded by
Maurice Schumann
Preceded by
Pierre Messmer		 Minister of National Defense
1969–1973		 Succeeded by
Robert Galley
Preceded by
Louis de Broglie		 Seat 1
Académie française
1988-1996		 Succeeded by
François Furet


[edit] References

  1. ^ (French) ladepeche.fr. "Radical Party". Retrieved on 2007-12-16.
  2. ^ (French) de-gaulle.info. "La Cendre Et La Braise". Retrieved on 2007-12-16.