Alain Madelin

Alain Madelin (2009)

Alain-Louis Madelin (pronunciation:  [ alɛ̃ mad (ə) lɛ̃ ] ; born March 26, 1946 in Paris ) is a right-wing liberal French politician . He was Minister for Industry 1986–88 and Economic Development from 1993–95. From 1997 to 2002 he was party leader of the Démocratie Libérale , from 1999 to 2002 a member of the European Parliament , in 2002 he unsuccessfully applied for the office of President.

Origin, education and youth as a right-wing extremist

The son of a skilled worker at Renault and a secretary, spent his childhood in the Paris district of Belleville . As a 16-year-old student at the Lycée , he joined the right-wing extremist Fédération des étudiants nationalistes (FEN). In 1964 he began to study law at the Panthéon-Assas University (Paris II). In the same year he was one of the founders of the right-wing, anti-communist and pro-colonial organization Occident , which was led by Pierre Sidos . This also included Patrick Devedjian and Gérard Longuet , who were roughly the same age, and who later also became ministers of the civil camp. In the summer of 1965, Madelin and Devedjian committed several thefts on the Côte d'Azur (including a Simca 1000 and identity papers), used a forged license plate and illegally owned a 6.35 pistol. For this they were both sentenced to one year probation in prison.

In the 1965 presidential election , Madelin supported the candidacy of Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour , an opponent of Algeria's independence . In the spring of 1966, Madelin and the Occident group protested against the performance of the anti-colonialist play Les Paravents by Jean Genet in the Théâtre de l'Odéon , throwing dead rats and tear gas on the stage. After an attack on communist students at the University of Rouen in January 1967, Madelin was convicted, along with twelve other Occident activists (including Devedjian and Longuet), for "planned and armed violence" and had to pay a fine of 1,000 francs.

In October 1968 the Occident group disbanded . Then Madelin worked for the Institut d'histoire sociale (IHS), an employer-oriented, anti-communist think tank under the direction of the former Vichy collaborators Georges Albertini and Claude Harmel , who wanted to "recycle" right-wing extremist activists for civil rights. Madelin completed his studies with a license and was sworn in as a lawyer in 1971.

Political party

In the autumn of 1968 Madelin joined the conservative-liberal party Républicains indépendants (Independent Republicans), led by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing . He was a member of Giscard d'Estaing's campaign team, who was elected president in 1974 . Madelin was a member of the Club de l'horloge , founded in 1974 by Yvan Blot , Jean-Yves Le Gallou and Henry de Lesquen , a national liberal think tank that hinge between the moderate and the extreme right. He was also close to the economically liberal Association pour la liberté économique et le progrès social (ALEPS), financed by industrialists and employers' associations . The Républicains indépendants renamed themselves in 1977 to Parti républicain , which from 1978 belonged to the civic party alliance Union pour la démocratie française (UDF).

Madelin maintained close relationships with the “Nouveaux économistes” , a group of economists around Pascal Salin who followed the teachings of the Austrian School , Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich August von Hayek . Within PR, Madelin was counted among the "bande à Léo" around François Léotard , who took over the party leadership in 1982. They campaigned for a neoliberal program modeled on the Margaret Thatcher governments in Great Britain and Ronald Reagan in the USA. Madelin has been referred to in the press as an “advocate”, “high priest” or “ideologue number 1 of liberalism”, as a “passionate” or “fanatical liberal”. In October 1994 Madelin founded the Club Idées Action , to which mainly members of the PR, but also some of the RPR belonged. While the majority of the UDF to the presidential election in 1995 behind Édouard Balladur presented, Alain Madelin decided Jacques Chirac to support.

After the left won the 1997 general election, Madelin took over the leadership of the Republican Party. Shortly thereafter, the party was renamed Démocratie Libérale (DL). In March 1998, after the regional elections, Alain Madelin refused to condemn the candidates who were supported by the right-wing extremist Front National , and the Démocratie Libérale left the UDF party alliance. Madelin ran as a candidate for the 2002 presidential election . Most of his own party MPs backed Chirac's candidacy, however, and Madelin received just 3.91% of the vote. The DL then merged with other liberal and conservative forces to form the Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP). Within this party, Madelin belonged to the economically liberal Les Réformateurs movement around Hervé Novelli and Jean-Pierre Gorges .

MP

Alain Madelin was elected to the National Assembly in 1978 as a member of a constituency in the Ille-et-Vilaine department . He was re-elected in 1981, 1988, 1993, 1995, 1997 and 2002. During his tenure as minister, he resigned from parliament. He did not run for the 2007 parliamentary election.

Government offices

After the victory of center-right parties in the parliamentary elections in 1986 Madelin was from March 1986 to May 1988 Minister of Industry, Post and Telecommunications and Tourism in the first Cohabitations - Cabinet under Prime Minister Jacques Chirac .

From March 1993 to May 1995 he headed the business and economic development department in the government of Édouard Balladur (second cohabitation). After Chirac was elected president, Madelin was appointed Minister of Economy and Finance in Juppé I's cabinet in May 1995 . Due to the liberal direction that he represented - he wanted to abolish the special pension systems for employees in state-owned companies - he was forced to resign after three months and was replaced by Jean Arthuis .

Local and regional policy

From 1986 to 1992 Madelin was a member of the Regional Council of Brittany , from 1992 to 1998 its vice-president. From 1994 to 1995 Madelin was a member of the General Council of the Ille-et-Vilaine department. From 1995 to 2001 he was mayor of the small Breton town of Redon .

European Parliament

In the European elections in 1989 Madelin was elected to the European Parliament. He was a member of the Liberal and Democratic Group and was Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Economic, Monetary and Industrial Policy. After three months, he resigned in November 1989.

From 1999 to 2002 he was again a member of the European Parliament. This time he sat in the conservative EPP-ED group , was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs 1999-2001 , then in the Committee on Budgets and a delegate in the parliamentary committees for cooperation and delegations for relations with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan Mongolia. After his defeat in the presidential election, he resigned in June 2002.

Work and private life

He is currently practicing as a lawyer in Paris. Living in divorce from his wife, he has three children.

Publications

• Pour libérer l'école, l'enseignement à la carte, 1984 ( For the liberation of schools, lessons according to specifications )
• Chers Compatriotes… Program pour un président, 1994 ( Dear fellow citizens… Program for a President )
• Quand les autruches relèveront la tête, 1995 ( When the bouquets raise their heads )
• Le droit du plus faible, 1999 ( The right of the weakest )

literature

• Frédéric Charpier: Génération Occident. De l'extrême droite à la droite. Seuil, Paris 2005.

Web links

Commons : Alain Madelin  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Alain Madelin on the website of the French National Assembly for the 12th legislative period (French)
• Biography of Alain Madelin
• Entry on Alain Madelin in the database of Members of the European Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Madelin, le libéral branché. In: LaDepeche.fr , February 14, 2002.
2. ↑ Philippe Ridet, Gérard Davet: Quarante ans après, les anciens d'Occident revisitent leur passé. In: Le Monde , February 13, 2005.
3. ↑ Mais que signifie "avoir un passé chez Occident"? In: Slate.fr , February 27, 2014.
4. ↑ Peillon exhume le passé judiciaire de Devedjian. In: Le Figaro , February 26, 2010.
5. ↑ Xavier Molénat: Alain Madelin. In: Presidentielles.net , February 12, 2002.
6. ^ Todd Shepard: Algerian Reveries on the Far Right. Thinking about Algeria to Change France in 1968. In: Julian Jackson u. a .: May 68. Rethinking France's Last Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke (Hampshire) / New York 2011, pp. 76-92, at pp. 83-84.
7. ↑ Frederic Charpier: De l'extrême droite au patronage. Madelin, Devedjian, Longuet et les autres. In: Benoît Collombat, David Servenay: Histoire secrète du patronat de 1945 à nos jours. La Découverte, 2014, pp. 261–271.
8. ^ Sylvain Laurens: Le Club de l'horloge et la haute administration: promouvoir l'hostilité à l'immigration dans l'entre-soi mondain. In: Agone , No. 54 (2014), pp. 73-94.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Jérôme Perrier: La parenthèse libérale de la droite française des années 1980. Le phénomène politique de la “bande à Léo” or l'échec de la promotion d'un libéralisme contre l'État. In: Histoire @ Politique , No. 25, January – April 2015.
10. ^ Entry on Alain Madelin in the European Parliament 's database of deputies