Denis Clerc (politician)

Denis Clerc

Denis Clerc (born December 18, 1935 in Rossens ; † April 7, 2012 in Friborg ) was a Swiss politician ( SP ) and State Councilor of the canton of Friborg .

Live and act

His parents are Olivier Clerc, farmer, and Rosa nee. Ducrest. He is the twelfth of 15 children in a farming family that has consisted of several clergymen. In 1969 he married Geneviève Gobet. The couple have two children.

After attending the St. Michael College , from which he graduated with a Matura , he studied humanities at the University of Freiburg , where the writer Pierre-Henri Simon , later a member of the Académie française , taught , among others . In 1959 Clerc passed his licentiate . Working at the same time, he wrote his doctoral thesis on Albert Béguin , literary critic and director of Esprit magazine (1965). He taught classical literature at the grammar school in Romont and at the Collegium St. Michael in Freiburg and worked for a year in a publishing house in Milan . After his return in 1966, he became interested in politics in a canton that awoke from a hundred-year-old lethargy imposed by the conservative regime. Contrary to family tradition, he joined the Social Democratic Party. He became their political secretary and one of the editors of the Freiburg party organ, Travail.

As a result of these activities as a candidate for the Grand Council and for the Council of State , Clerc was elected to both councils in the cantonal elections at the end of 1971. With Jean Riesen he was one of the first two Social Democrats in government. Initially he headed the police and health department, then after an internal reorganization he became head of the health and social welfare department. He had to fight against the declared opposition of the medical society, which opposed any institutional relationship with the state and the health insurance companies. In 1976 he just lost his seat when he received 235 votes less than the liberal Hans Baechler . From 1978 to 1982 he headed the cantonal Social Democratic Party and also taught at the Institut de français modern at the University of Freiburg. The party won the municipal elections in the city of Freiburg in 1978 and then the federal elections of 1979 (best result of the SP in national elections with 30.7% and Otto Piller's entry into the Council of States ). Under his leadership, the SP Freiburg launched an initiative for the popular election of the Council of State, which received more than 40% of the votes against a counter-draft that wanted to restrict the representation of a party that did not have a majority in the Grand Council. He was the only person to have been re-elected in 1981 since the introduction of the popular elections to the State Council and returned to "his" post at the head of the health and social welfare directorate, from which he resigned in 1991. Since he was in conflict with the left wing of his party, he resigned from the SP Freiburg in 1989.

The responsibility for the health and social sector, which until now could only hope for the support of the love of children and private charity, gave him the opportunity to let the state ensure justice and institutional solidarity between the individuals in a legal way. He passed numerous new or totally revised laws that created the “Freiburg welfare state”: health insurance (1982), hospitals (1983), special homes for the handicapped or difficult-to-educate (1986), family allowances (1976, 1990), social assistance (1991) and maternity allowances (1991). Finally, in 1989, with Mediplan , he launched the reorganization of the hospitals by proposing that acute care be concentrated in three public institutions. This led to fierce resistance in the regions, which quickly had to bow to logic and necessity. Thanks to the 1982 law, a total of 55 old people's homes were renovated or built between 1981 and 1992. The same applied to the special homes for the handicapped or difficult to educate. In 1983 he completed the first family planning service as part of the Psychosocial Center. In 1974 the Water Protection Act was passed after long parliamentary debates.

These actions, the usefulness of which are undisputed today, earned him political enemies, especially since he showed little consideration. In 1988, when he was elected President of the State Council, only 50 members voted for him. The Christian Democratic President of the Grand Council felt the need to apologize for this at the meeting. Even within his party there was increasing resistance to Denis Clerc, who with his colleagues Félicien Morel , Jean Riesen and a few others fought against a tendency inspired by Mitterrand's model of the "break with capitalism" and which ultimately led to his resignation.

After leaving the Council of State (1991), Denis Clerc fought in the Communauté romande du pays de Friborg for the strict application of the territoriality principle in the linguistic area, which he had helped to incorporate into the cantonal constitution. Together with his colleague Morel and the judge Curty, he criticized the election of two new German-speaking judges to the Saane District Court (November 29, 1990). A draft for the revision of the school law, which in his opinion violated the territoriality principle, was rejected by the people in 2000; Approved by almost all political circles, the draft was opposed by the faculty. As a biting and ironic chronicler, Denis Clerc had not completely retired from politics and regularly spoke in a column in Liberté . His memoirs are entitled “Les lacets rouges” (2007).

literature

• Georges Andrey , Hubertus von Gemmingen (translation): The Freiburg State Council: 1848–2011; History, organization, members . Ed .: John Clerc, Jean-Pierre Dorand, Nicholas Gex. Paulus, Freiburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-7228-0815-4 .

Web link

• Marianne Rolle / AW: Clerc, Denis. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .