Charles Pasqua

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Charles Pasqua (1987)

Charles Pasqua (born April 18, 1927 in Grasse , Alpes-Maritimes department , † June 29, 2015 in Suresnes , Hauts-de-Seine department ) was a French businessman and politician . From 1986 to 1988 and from 1993 to 1995 he was French interior minister .

Career

Charles Pasqua was the son of the police officer André Pasqua from Grasse and his wife Françoise Rinaldi; his grandfather was a shepherd from the Corsican village of Casevecchie . At the age of 15 Pasqua belonged to the Resistance under the code name "Prairie" . Charles Pasqua began studying law, but never graduated from it. He began his career in 1952 as an employee of the French alcohol manufacturer Paul Ricard. He stayed with this company until 1971, where he went from sales inspector to regional and trade director to sales manager and export manager and reached its zenith as number 2 in the group. In 1967, together with colleagues, he started his own business as an importer of American alcoholic beverages with the company Euralim ( Europe Alimentation ) in Levallois-Perret .

In 1947 he helped found the Alpes-Maritimes section of the Gaullist party Rassemblement du peuple français (RPF).

Together with Jacques Foccart , he helped President Charles de Gaulle in 1959 to found the Service d'action civique (SAC) to counter the terrorist actions of the OAS during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962). The SAC was entrusted with the underground actions of the Gaullist movement and took part in the organization of the Gaullist counter-demonstration on May 30, 1968 . After the “Auriol Massacre” on the night of July 18, 1981, it was dissolved by President François Mitterrand (the five members of the Auriol Command were sentenced on May 1, 1985 to imprisonment between 15 years and life, although the actual head was behind the murder of Inspector Massie was never identified).

In 1964, Pasqua first appeared as a political candidate in the election of the Chamber of Commerce of Marseille in the list of “free companies”.

As Vice-President of the SAC he was elected from 1968 to 1973 for the Gaullist Union pour la défense de la République (UDR) as a member of the French National Assembly for Clichy / Levallois-Perret for the Hauts-de-Seine department . From 1974 and 1976 he was a member of the party leadership. From 1981 to 1986 Pasqua was Senator of the Hauts-de-Seine department, most recently chairman of the Gaullist Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) in the Senate.

Charles Pasqua (left), in 1987 in Bonn at a meeting with Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann

In 1981, Pasqua was the chief organizer of Jacques Chirac's presidential campaign , which he lost to François Mitterrand . During the first cohabitation from 1986 to 1988 in the Chirac cabinet and from 1993 to 1995 in the Édouard Balladur cabinet , Pasqua was Minister of the Interior. During this time he was mostly associated with promoting anti-immigration laws ( Lois Pasqua ). His aim was to severely limit immigration, which he believed had prevailed under the previous socialist governments. At times he pursued the policy of “zero immigration”, zéro immigration , which was supposed to prevent any non-European immigration if possible.

In 1991 Pasqua founded his own formation " Demain la France " (English: morning France). Together with Philippe Séguin , he recommended rejection in the 1992 referendum on the Maastricht Treaty . On the occasion of the presidential elections in 1995 Pasqua supported Balladur's candidacy against Chirac and took over the leadership of the party. Chirac won the candidacy and the election for president. In 1995, Pasqua introduced a visa requirement for people from the Comoros , a group of islands in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar , which until 1975 belonged to the French colonial area, and forcibly deported numerous people from the Comoros.

With the argument that Chirac was not a true heir to Gaullism, Pasqua distanced himself from the RPR and Chirac in 1998 and founded the Rassemblement pour la France together with Philippe de Villiers in 1999 , for which he was elected member of the European Parliament in the same year . In doing so, his RPF became stronger than the RPR led by Nicolas Sarkozy . In 2004 Pasqua left the European Parliament.

Charles Pasqua (left) with Hassan Ben M'Barek (2003)

In the 2002 presidential election , Pasqua tried in vain for its own candidacy. However, he did not submit the necessary 500 signatures from state or municipal representatives that only entitle the holder to participate in the presidential elections. It is possible that he ultimately decided against running because Jean-Marie Le Pen's participation in the elections would not leave him enough political space. In May 2002, Pasqua caused a sensation by calling for a referendum to reinstate the death penalty in France.

In September 2004, Pasqua was elected to the Senate by an electoral body for the Hauts-de-Seine department . Many commentators alleged that his Senate appointment was motivated by parliamentary immunity , which precluded further prosecution of Pasqua in connection with allegations of corruption in the Hauts-de-Seine department. In 2011, Pasqua did not run again.

Between 1973 and 1976 and again between 1988 and 2004, Pasqua was President of the General Council of the Hauts-de-Seine department, where he built Nicolas Sarkozy as his successor (2004 to 2007), although he was elected mayor of Neuilly-sur in 1983 -His got ahead .

Corruption scandals

Pasqua's name was mentioned in connection with corruption scandals involving public housing projects in the Hauts-de-Seine region. He was also named by Ali Bourequat , an ardent critic of the French government's cooperation with the Moroccan regime. While writing about his experience and the close ties between the Moroccan and French governments, Bourequat complained that he had been threatened and harassed by both the Moroccan and French secret police . He fled to the USA , where he was the second refugee from France to receive political asylum in 1995 .

In 2004, the name Pasqua appeared on a list published by al Mada of people who allegedly accepted corruption funds from Saddam Hussein's government during the oil-for-food program . He denied these allegations.

In a 2005 report by the US Senate , Pasqua and British MP George Galloway were again accused of having owned oil-for-food oil buying rights under the UN's Oil-for-Food regime. Pasqua denied these allegations, replying that the evidence presented in the US Senate report showed that while the Iraqi regime intended to reward Pasqua by giving oil "coupons" to liaison officers, there was no evidence that it would any of it got through to him.

In a April 5, 2006 report by the French Economic Crime Brigade, Pasqua was accused of benefiting from approximately 10.7 million barrels of oil during phases 6, 7 and 8 of the Oil-for-Food program in connection with three contracts to have been what he denied.

Personal

Pasqua was married to Jeanne Simard from Québec , whom he met in Grasse. Together they had a son named Pierre-Philippe Pasqua (called Pierre Pasqua), who died in February 2015.

Charles Pasqua died on June 29, 2015 at the Hôpital Foch in Suresnes of acute heart failure. On July 3, a requiem followed in the Invalides in Paris in the presence of numerous politicians . The funeral took place on July 7th in Grasse , attended by Nicolas Sarkozy , Carla Bruni , Bernadette Chirac and Christian Estrosi .

Web links

Commons : Charles Pasqua  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ NN: Le vieux lion est mort. corsematin.com, June 30, 2015, accessed June 30, 2015
  2. ↑ Contributions to the politician on the Encyclopaedia Britannica website , accessed on June 30, 2015
  3. ^ NN: Mort de Charles Pasqua, Gaulliste et ancien premier flic de France. ( Memento of the original from July 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. corsematin.com, June 30, 2015, accessed June 30, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.corsematin.com
  4. ^ Charles Pasqua, French minister-obituary. In: Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved June 8, 2016 .
  5. ↑ PHOTOS. La foule à Grasse pour les obsèques de Charles Pasqua. In: archives.nicematin.com. Retrieved June 8, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Pasqua, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French politician, member of the National Assembly, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Grasse , Alpes-Maritimes
DATE OF DEATH June 29, 2015
Place of death Suresnes , Hauts-de-Seine department