Michel Debré

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Minister of the Economy and Finance
In office
8 January 1966 – 31 May 1968
Prime MinisterGeorges Pompidou
Preceded byValéry Giscard d'Estaing
Succeeded byMaurice Couve de Murville
Member of the National Assembly
In office
26 November 1962 – 14 May 1988
ConstituencyRéunion
Personal details
Born
Michel Jean-Pierre Debré

(1912-01-15)15 January 1912
Union for the New Republic
(1958–1968)
Union of Democrats for the Republic
(1968–1976)
Rally for the Republic

(1976–1988)
Spouse
Anne-Marie Lemaresquier
​
​
(m. 1936)​
ChildrenVincent (b. 1939)
War Cross
Signature
WebsiteGovernment profile site
Military service
Allegiance Vichy France
 Free France
Branch/service French Army
Years of service1939–1945
RankCommissioner of the Republic
Lieutenant
UnitFrench Cavalry
Battles/warsWorld War II
:

Michel Jean-Pierre Debré[1] (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl dəbʁe]; 15 January 1912 – 2 August 1996) was the first Prime Minister of the French Fifth Republic. He is considered the "father" of the current Constitution of France. He served under President Charles de Gaulle from 1959 to 1962. In terms of political personality, Debré was intense and immovable and had a tendency to rhetorical extremism.[2]

Early life

Debré was born in Paris, the son of Jeanne-Marguerite (Debat-Ponsan) and Robert Debré, a well-known professor of medicine, who is today considered by many to be the founder of modern pediatrics. His maternal grandfather was academic painter Édouard Debat-Ponsan. Debré's father was Jewish, and his grandfather was a rabbi.[3][4] Debré himself was Roman Catholic.[1][3]

He studied at the

Conseil d'État. In 1938, he joined the staff of the Economy Minister Paul Reynaud
.

Early career

In 1939, at the beginning of the

maître des requêtes by the Minister of Justice. After the German invasion of the free zone in November 1942, Debré's political Pétainism disappeared, and in February 1943, he became involved in the French Resistance by joining the network Ceux de la Résistance
(CDLR).

During the summer of 1943, General Charles de Gaulle gave Debré the task of making a list of prefects 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. While doing so, he created the École nationale d'administration, a decision rooted in ideas formulated by Jean Zay before the war.

Under the

Radical-Socialist Party on the alleged advice 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's there that you will find the last vestiges of the meaning of the state".)[5]

Debré then joined the Rally of the French People and was elected senator of Indre-et-Loire, a position that 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 2 December 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.

The explicit appeal to the insurgency led the socialist politician

OAS insurgency, the soldiers are not the culprit; the culprit is Debré".[6]

Family

Michel Debré had four sons:

urologist and politician; and Bernard's fraternal twin, Jean-Louis Debré, politician. See Debré family
.

Government

Michel Debré with David Ben-Gurion at Hôtel Matignon, on the first official visit of the Israeli Prime Minister to Paris. June, 1960

Michel Debré became the Garde des Sceaux and Minister of Justice in the cabinet of General de Gaulle on 1 June 1958.[7] 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 8 January 1959[8] to 1962.

After the

French colonial empires
would follow the path trodden by Algeria: that of independence for which he was not sympathetic.

Debré wanted to take action against the

demonstrations on the island a few days earlier. He also noted that the invalidation of Gabriel Macé's election as Mayor of Saint-Denis
rendered the post open to the opposition and so he took the decision to contest the election.

Debré returned to the government in 1966 as Economy and Finance Minister. After the

May 1968 crisis, he became Foreign Minister and, one year later, served as Defence Minister under President Georges Pompidou. In that role, he became a hated figure of the left because of his determination to expropriate the land of 107 peasant farmers and shepherds on the Larzac plateau to extend an existing military base. The resulting civil disobedience campaign
was ultimately victorious.

Considered as a guardian of the Gaullist orthodoxy, Debré was marginalised after the election of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing as President of France in 1974, whose foreign policy Debré criticised with virulence. In 1979, Debré took a major part in the Rally for the Republic (RPR) campaign against European federalism and was elected member of the European Parliament to defend the principle of the Europe of nations. However, Debré later accused Jacques Chirac, and the RPR moderated their speech. Debré was a dissident candidate in the 1981 presidential election but obtained only 1.6% of votes.

Politics in Réunion

Michel Debré arrived on the island of

overseas departments and territories of France to be recalled to Metropolitan France if they were suspected of disturbing public order.[9]
Supported by those who rejected autonomy, he immediately became the leader of the local right wing. That state of affairs would be challenged by Pierre Lagourgue 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 personally fought to get Paris to create a second secondary school on the south of the island, in Le Tampon, when at the time there was only one, the Lycée Leconte-de-Lisle, which catered for many thousands of inhabitants.[citation needed]

From 1968 to 1982, Debré forcibly relocated over 2,000 children from Réunion to France, to work as free labour in Creuse. The plight of those children, known as the Children of Creuse, was brought to light in 2002 when the Réunion exile Jean-Jacques Martial made a legal complaint against Debré, who had organised the controversial displacement, for "kidnapping of a minor, roundup and deportation".[10] In 2005, a similar case was brought against the French Government by the Association of Réunion of Creuse.[11]

Political career

Governmental functions

  • Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice: 1958–1959.
  • Prime Minister: 1959–1962.
  • Minister of Economy and Finance: 1966–1968.
  • Minister of Foreign Affairs: 1968–1969.
  • Minister of Defense: 1969–1973.

Electoral mandates

European Parliament

Senate of France

  • Senator of Indre-et-Loire: 1948–1959 Became Prime minister in 1959. Elected in 1948, reelected in 1954.

National Assembly

General Council

Municipal Council

  • Mayor of Amboise: 1966–1989. Reelected in 1971, 1977, 1983.
  • Municipal councillor of Amboise: 1959–1989. Reelected in 1965, 1971, 1977, 1983.

Debré's Government, 8 January 1959 – 14 April 1962

Changes

References

  1. ^ a b "Nytimes.com". The New York Times. 10 January 1966. Archived from the original on 14 December 2021. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
  2. ^ David Wilsford, ed. Political leaders of contemporary Western Europe: a biographical dictionary (Greenwood, 1995) pp. 97–105
  3. ^
    JSTOR 23605151
    .
  4. ^ "Index-catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office, United States Army: Authors and subjects". 1972.
  5. ^ ladepeche.fr. "Radical Party" (in French). Archived from the original on 21 May 2011. Retrieved 16 December 2007.
  6. ^ de-gaulle.info. "La Cendre Et La Braise" (in French). Archived from the original on 16 May 2008. Retrieved 16 December 2007.
  7. ^ "Décret du 1er juin 1958 portant nomination des membres du gouvernement". Archived from the original on 7 December 2011. Retrieved 28 July 2009.
  8. Journal Officiel de la République Française
    , 9 January 1959
  9. DOM
    dont le comportement est de nature à troubler l'ordre public
  10. ISBN 978-2-84784-110-7. Archived
    from the original on 10 July 2014. Retrieved 13 September 2012.
  11. ^ Châtain, Georges (18 August 2005). "Les Réunionnais de la Creuse veulent faire reconnaître leur " déportation " en métropole "". Le Monde. Archived from the original on 14 December 2021. Retrieved 13 September 2012.

Further reading

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Michel Debré
  • Wahl, Nicholas. "The Constitutional Ideas of Michel Debré." Theory and Politics/Theorie und Politik. Springer Netherlands, 1971. 259–271.
  • Wilsford, David, ed. Political leaders of contemporary Western Europe: a biographical dictionary (Greenwood, 1995) pp. 97–105

Primary sources

  • Debré, Michel. "The principles of our defence policy: Revue de Défense Nationale (Paris) 26 année August/September 1970." Survival 12#11 (1970): 376–383.
  • Debre, Michel (1986), "Michel Debre on French Population Policy", Population and Development Review, 12 (3): 606–608,
    JSTOR 1973241
Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Justice
1958–1959 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Prime Minister of France
1959–1962 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Minister of Economy and Finance

1966–1968 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Minister of Foreign Affairs

1966–1969 		Succeeded by
Preceded byas Minister of the Armies Minister of National Defence
1969–1973 		Succeeded by
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