Gaston Monnerville
Gaston Monnerville (born January 2, 1897 in Cayenne , † November 7, 1991 in Paris ) was a French lawyer, politician and constitutional judge.
Life
Monnerville, grandson of a slave , grew up in French Guiana and successfully completed his studies in Toulouse . In 1918 he became a lawyer and worked with the lawyer and later politician César Campinchi . Monnerville joined the Parti républicain, radical et radical-socialiste . In 1932 he became a member of the French National Assembly for French Guiana . From 1937 to 1938 he held the post of State Secretary for the Colonies under Camille Chautemps . He was the first dark-skinned member of a French government.
At the beginning of the Second World War he served in the French Navy on the battleship Provence . On July 17, 1940, he was demobilized after his defeat by Germany . He protested against the Armistice of Compiègne by Marshal Pétain and complained about the treatment of French colonial subjects by the Vichy government .
Participation in the Resistance
At the end of 1940 he joined the Combat , one of the strongest groups in the Resistance . As a lawyer in the unoccupied Marseille , he defended prisoners and people persecuted by the Vichy government because of their political views or their origins. He was interrogated and arrested several times by the Vichy Police. After the complete occupation of France by German troops in 1942, he joined the Maquis of Auvergne under the code name "Commander St-Just ". With his wife Cheylade he founded a military hospital in 1944. In 1944, the Radical Party sent him to the "Provisional Consultative Assembly" of the Provisional French Government.
Government Member and Senator
In 1945 he was appointed chairman of a commission that was supposed to work out a procedure for the future status of the overseas department . In October 1945 he was elected as a delegate from French Guiana to the "First Constituent Assembly" of the Fourth Republic and then to the Second Constituent Assembly of 1946. In 1946 he was a French delegate to the first session of the UN . An election to the third constituent assembly in November 1946 failed because part of the population of French Guiana refused to accept his efforts to close the prison on Devil's Island . Instead, he received a seat in the Senate , was immediately elected Vice President of the Republic, and became one of the most active members of that body. In March 1947 he was elected President of the Council with 141 votes against 131 for the Communist candidate.
In 1948 he moved from Guyana to the French department of Lot . He was re-elected Senator and retained the seat and office of Council President until the end of the Fourth Republic in 1958.
Senator of the Fifth Republic
In 1958 Monnerville assisted Charles de Gaulle in returning to power, but he opposed the general's dissolution of the Fourth Republic. When the Fifth Republic was formed, he earned a seat in the Senate and was elected President of the Senate in 1959, where he served until 1968.
In 1962 he campaigned against the French presidential election reform referendum, a reform strongly requested by Charles de Gaulle. He used the term forfaiture (" abuse of office ") to describe the behavior of Prime Minister Georges Pompidou , who signed the referendum.
From 1977 to 1983 he was a member of the Constitutional Court ( Conseil constitutionnel ) .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Biography in French on the website of the Assemblée Nationale
- ↑ Alec Stone, The Birth of Judicial Policy in France: The Constitutional Council in Comparative Perspective , Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-507034-8 , Chapter III
- ^ French Senate , signing Le conflit du Referendum de 1962
- ↑ Decree 62-1127 of October 2, 1962, preceded by a letter from Prime Minister Georges Pompidou , President Charles de Gaulle proposes to submit it to a referendum. under Article 11 of the Constitution, a bill changing the mode of election for the President of France.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Monnerville, Gaston |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French lawyer, politician, member of the National Assembly and constitutional judge |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 2, 1897 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cayenne |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 7, 1991 |
| Place of death | Paris |