Gaston Defferre

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Gaston Defferre (1959)

Gaston Paul Charles Defferre (born September 14, 1910 in Marsillargues , Département Hérault , † May 7, 1986 in Marseille ) was a French politician of the Socialist Party .

Life

Defferre comes from a petty-bourgeois Protestant family; he was the second child of Paul Defferre (1882–1961) and Suzanne Causse (1882–1971). In 1928 he settled in Dakar . After studying economics and law in Aix-en-Provence , he became a lawyer in the Marseille Bar in 1931, and in 1933 he joined the SFIO , became a supporter of the Popular Front and a militant socialist.

In 1940 he became one of the first socialist Resistance members in the Comité d'action socialiste (CAS) created by Daniel Mayer . In the immediate vicinity of the Brutus network of Pierre Sudreau and André Boyer , he was given the name of Lieutenant Colonel Danver . He went underground when the Wehrmacht occupied the “ free, unoccupied zone ” of France on November 12, 1942 (“ Company Anton ”). They created a network in Toulouse , Lyon and the Lot department .

On September 15, 1944 Defferre received Charles de Gaulle after the liberation ( Liberation ) in front of the town hall of Marseille.

From 1953 to 1986 he was the socialist mayor of Marseille (33 years old, a record), which earned him the nickname King of the Canebière .

In 1969 he was the SFIO's presidential candidate (in tandem with Pierre Mendès France from the Parti radical socialiste , who would have become prime minister if elected), but received only 5.0% in the first ballot on June 1, 1969 (for comparison: Georges Pompidou received 44.47%, Alain Poher 23.31% and Jacques Duclos 21.27%). Defferre was Interior Minister in the Mauroy cabinet during President François Mitterrand's first term (May 1981 to July 1984).

He was best known for his long term mandate as Mayor of Marseille and as the author of the Decentralization Act (promulgated March 2, 1982). He was temporarily director of the newspaper Le Provençal .

Since 1973 he was married to the writer Edmonde Charles-Roux (1920–2016).

duel

Photo of the duel in Neuilly-sur-Seine . V. l. To the right: Duelist Ribière, referee Lipkowski, duelist Defferre

On April 21, 1967, Defferre and the Gaullist MP René Ribière (1922-1998) carried out the last official duel in France with the sword in the park of a villa in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris . Defferre had called Ribière idiots ( abruti ) during a session of the French National Assembly , and Ribière had then called for a duel "to restore his honor". The nationalist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen acted as Ribière's second ; The referee was the left-wing Gaullist MP Jean de Lipkowski . The duel, which took place in the presence of photographers and a camera team, was canceled after four minutes after Defferre injured his opponent twice and left him with a bleeding wound on his epee arm.

Political mandates

  • Socialist member of the Bouches-du-Rhône department (1945–1958)
  • Mayor of Marseille (1944–1945 and 1953–1986)
  • State Secretary for Information from January 26 to June 24, 1946 in the Félix Gouin cabinet
  • Undersecretary of State for the French overseas territories from December 16, 1946 to January 22, 1947 in the Léon Blum cabinet
  • Minister of Commerce for the Navy from July 12, 1950 to August 11, 1951 in the René Pleven and Henri Queuille cabinet
  • Minister for the French Overseas Territories from February 1, 1956 to June 13, 1957 in the Guy Mollet cabinet
  • socialist senator from 1959 to 1962
  • Socialist member of the National Assembly since 1962 and leader of the SFIO parliamentary group
  • Minister of the Interior and Minister for Decentralization from May 21, 1981 to July 17, 1984 in the Pierre Mauroy cabinet
  • Minister of State responsible for the plan and reorganization of the territory from July 17, 1984 to March 20, 1986 in the Laurent Fabius cabinet

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1967 Epee Duel Deffere vs. Ribiere . RTL report about the duel (90 seconds) on Youtube . Retrieved April 2, 2020
  2. ↑ L'insulte à mort? ( Memento from October 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (contains a link to the weekly report with a film recording of the duel)
  3. ↑ Philipp Schnee: Hewing and stabbing for fame and honor. Spiegel Online, October 2, 2009. Retrieved December 11, 2019

Web links

Commons : Gaston Defferre  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Defferre, Gaston
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Defferre, Gaston Paul Charles (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French politician (SFIO, PS), member of the National Assembly
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Marsillargues , Hérault
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 1986
Place of death Marseille