François Perin

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François Perin (born January 31, 1921 in Liège ; † September 27, 2013 ) was a Belgian politician and university professor of constitutional law . He has been an advocate of the " Walloon Movement" since the 1960s and was a co-founder of the Mouvement populaire wallon (MPW). Perin was active as a parliamentarian in various parties ( Chamber of Deputies and Senate ) and was a minister in his Rassemblement Wallon (RW) party in the national government from 1974 to 1976 . François Perin is widely known as one of the architects of the Belgian political system . After his resignation from active politics and his emeritus position, he continued to publish written works in which he advocated a split in Belgium and an independent Wallonia or an annexation of these to France .

Life

Socialist and Walloon (1940–1964)

François Perin began his law studies at the University of Liège (ULg) in 1940, but had to interrupt it due to the Second World War and the German invasion on May 10 of the same year. At the time of the German invasion of Belgium, Perin was in France and did not take part in the fighting. However, in 1942 he joined the Wallonie libre (Eng. "Free Wallonia") movement and its Jeune Wallonie section and was involved in the dissemination of forbidden press material in occupied Belgium. At that time, François Perin became, according to his own statements, “a socialist out of hatred of fascism ”. In 1944 he joined the Belgian Socialist Party (the predecessor of today's sp.a and PS ).

After the Second World War, Perin took an active part in the party's political action and argued against the return of King Leopold III as part of the so-called " King's Question " . to Belgium. He was also involved in the preparation of the Walloon National Congress on October 20 and 21, 1945. The end of the war enabled him to finish his studies and obtain a doctorate in law (1946). After a brief internship in the Ministry of the Interior, François Perin joined the State Council in 1948 . In the following years he also worked as assistant to Walter Ganshof van der Meersch , professor of public law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) (1952), assistant head of cabinet to the interior minister Pierre Vermeylen (1954) and lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Liège (1958, full professorship from 1968). From 1961 he was released from his position in the State Council and was no longer subject to political restraint.

From 1954, Perin intensified his political activity. He was a member of the Esprit think tank that later led to the creation of the Center de recherche et d'information socio-politiques (CRISP), and contributed to the La Gauche newspaper , where he worked on personalities such as Jacques Yerna , Ernest Glinne , Freddy Terwagne or met André Renard . With the latter two, François Perin founded the Mouvement populaire wallon (MPW) in 1961 , the Walloon people's movement that fought against the so-called "Unity Law" for Walloon autonomy as part of the general strike in the winter of 1960–1961. Together with Fernand Dehousse , also a member of the PSB, he proposed a new political model for Belgium, which envisaged a weak central state and three strong regions ( Flanders , Brussels and Wallonia) as part of advanced federalization . During the founding congress of the MPW, Perin spoke out against the monarchy , actually only jokingly, but received applause from those present. However, the top of the MPW, Dehousse and Renard in front, made it clear that they did not share this view.

Reinforced Walloon identity (1964–1980)

To explain the subsequent years spent Perin above all with his vision of the federal state of Belgium, where he equal treatment of the two major communities, the introduction of referendums advocated (referendum) and the compilation of a Walloon Assembly. He criticized the PSB because it initially did not want to adopt the regionalist theses. When in 1964 the PSB finally issued the incompatibility of party membership with MPW membership, Perin resigned from the socialist party. François Perin advocated the transformation of the MPW into a political party, but could not convince his colleagues, so that he was forced to found his own new party, the Parti wallon des travailleurs (PWT); there Perin also met Jean Gol , his "spiritual foster son". In 1965 he made it into the Chamber of Deputies with this exclusively Walloon party. With the intention of uniting the pro-Walloon forces and escaping the communist - Trotskyist tendencies within the PWT, a wing of the PWT merged with the Wallon Front (FW) of Robert Moreau and the new Parti wallon (PW) was founded. Perin took over the chairmanship and worked out a left-wing economic and social program (in which, among other things, the planned economy was advocated).

After the language conflict around the Catholic University in Leuven , which was split into a Dutch- speaking ( KUL ) and a French-speaking university ( UCL ) under the pressure of Flemish students ( “Walen buiten!” - Walloons out!) , The PW took the disappointed Members of the Christian party ( CPV - PSC ) such as Jean Duvieusart or Marcel Thiry and a new party under the name Rassemblement wallon (RW) was founded in 1968 under the chairmanship of François Perin. In the same year Perin was able to defend his mandate in the Chamber. During the subsequent negotiations for the first state reform in 1970, Perin was able to convince with his vision of the federal state, namely the parallel creation of communities for cultural and regions for economic and social affairs (even if these demands were only partially accepted a few years later). Even after the state reform, although meeting in the opposition, Perin was able to set accents for the RW in further negotiations with the Flemish side as part of the restructuring of Belgium. In 1974 he even rose with the RW in the Tindemans I government under Leo Tindemans (CVP) and became Minister for Institutional Reforms. During this time he prepared the "provisional regionalization" of Belgium, which was completed with the creation of the regions during the second state reform in 1980.

But RW's participation in government was not well received by the party base, and Perin's going it alone, who had given up his chairmanship for the duration of his ministerial office, created internal tensions. After RW lost in the local elections in 1976, Perin, together with Jean Gol and Etienne Knoops, first sought rapprochement with the PSC (sometimes by founding the CRéER think tank ), and later with the Walloon wing of the liberal Parti de la liberté et du progrès ( PLP). The RW wing Perins and the PLPW were merged and the new Parti des réformes et de la liberté de Wallonie (PRLW) was founded. In contrast to Gol, who took over the party leadership from 1979 and united them with the Brussels Liberals under the new name Parti Réformateur Liberal (PRL) (direct predecessor of today's MR ), Perin never really felt at home in the party. On March 26, 1980, in the midst of a discussion about regionalization, he stated that he no longer believed in the future of Belgium and announced his retirement from active political life. He officially left the PRL five years later.

Working after active politics (1980– today )

After his exit from the PRL and his emeritus status at the University of Liège in 1986, things gradually calmed down around François Perin. However, he did not withdraw entirely from politics, as he continued to publish monographs and articles in the daily press in which he interpreted his view of the immediate end of Belgium and the future of Wallonia as part of France or commented on the political topicality. He supported the Wallonie Région d'Europe movement founded in 1986 by José Happart (PS) , although a Europe of regions did not correspond to his vision. In the same year he was next to René Swennen and others co-author of a memorandum, which served as the basis for the party founded by Maurice Lebeau Mouvement Wallon pour le Retour à la France (Eng. "Wallonia Movement for the Return to France").

In 2002, Perin announced that he would place his trust in the Rassemblement Wallonie-France (RWF) party, chaired by Paul-Henry Gendebien , who was chairman of the same party when Perin left the RW in 1976. He last ran for this list in the provincial elections in 2006, but indicated from the outset that he would no longer accept a political mandate.

Perin also tried himself as a playwright. His play Les invités du docteur von Klaust premiered on November 6, 1998 at the Arlequin Theater in Liège.

François Perin was voted one of the 100 most important Walloon personalities of the twentieth century by the Jules Destrée Institute . Since he no longer believed in Belgium, he always refused the honorary title of Minister of State that was offered to him .

Overview of political offices

Literature (selection)

By François Perin

  • F. Perin: Les institutions politiques du Congo independant au 30 June 1960 . Institut politique congolais, Leopoldville (Kinshasa) 1960.
  • F. Perin: La démocratie enrayée. Essai sur le régime parlementaire belge de 1918 à 1958 . Institut belge de science politique (IBSC), No. 8, Brussels 1960.
  • F. Perin: La Belgique au défi: Flamands et Wallons à la recherche d'un Etat . Imprimerie coopérative, Huy 1962.
  • F. Perin: The regionalism in the European integration . UGA, Howl 1969.
  • F. Perin: Histoire d'une nation introuvable . Editions P. Legrain, Brussels 1988.

About François Perin

  • J.-F. Furnémont: François Perin, homme d'Etat sans Etat . Editions Luc Pire, Brussels 1998, ISBN 2-930240-12-1
  • J. Gheude: L'incurable mal belge sous le scalpel de François Perin . Editions Mols, Wavre 2007, ISBN 978-2-87402-090-2
  • François Périn , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 40/1977 of September 26, 1977, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lalibre.be: Perin chez Gendebien (March 8, 2002) (French)
  2. ↑ Lalibre.be: Le retour français de François Perin, Wallon historique (September 28, 2006) (French)
  3. ↑ Grenz-Echo : Ex-Minister as a playwright (November 7, 1998)
  4. ↑ Lalibre.be: Perin, prophète maudit en son (?) Pays (June 22, 2007) (French)
personal data
SURNAME Perin, François
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian politician and constitutional lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Liege
DATE OF DEATH September 27, 2013