Georges Python

Georges Python (born September 10, 1856 in Portalban , † January 10, 1927 in Fillistorf ) was a Swiss politician ( CVP ) who shaped politics in the city and canton of Friborg for a long time in a Catholic-conservative sense.

Live and act

Georges Python was strictly Catholic and came from the Broye district . His parents were Auguste, a farmer, Ammann, then community clerk, and Elisabeth born. de Castella de Delley. In 1889 he married Marie-Elisabeth, daughter of Louis de Wuilleret , Grand and National Councilor , leader of the Freiburg Conservatives. He thus married one of the influential conservative families in the city of Freiburg. He became brother-in-law of Charles de Wuilleret (chief bailiff of the Saane district and national councilor) and Paul Aeby (national councilor and mayor of Freiburg ). His son José was also a State Councilor (1951–1966).

After visiting the college in Schwyz and the college St. Michael , Georges Python studied at the law academy in Freiburg (1876–1878). Supported by Canon Schorderet since the beginning of his political career, he was a member of the “Cercle catholique” (1876) and central president of the Swiss Student Union (1879–1880). After an internship in the law firm of his future father-in-law, he was admitted to the bar (1879). He was President of the Saane District Court (1881–1886) and taught at the Law Academy (1883–1886). His political career began with his entry into the Grand Council as a member of the Broye District in the elections of 1881, which sealed the victory of the ultramontane conservatives. He remained a councilor until 1921, when the accumulation of offices was banned. In the military, he last held the rank of captain .

On September 7, 1886, Georges Python was elected to the Council of State and took over the Education Directorate (Ministry of Education), which he headed until his death in 1927. During these 41 years he was President of the Government four times, in 1895, 1903, 1908 and 1914. In the service of the ideal of a Catholic-conservative state, he was the - for a time undisputed - leader of the "Christian Republic" he founded and which he ruled with authority.

Python's first and visionary idea was to found a university. This should have a Switzerland and Europe-wide charisma and as a bulwark against the modern belief in science educate elites who should protect the people from the dangers of modernity. In order to implement such a project in a rural canton with limited financial resources, he planned to finance the university without taxpayers' money and provide it with special income. To this end, he acquired the water and forest company (1888, from 1915 FEW), which guaranteed the state income from an energy monopoly, and founded a cantonal bank (1892) which brought the alma mater an annual income. In parallel with these state-owned companies, he made a number of financial arrangements and invested in various companies that turned out to be in deficit. The cost of the university heightened opposition to the regime, and the affairs that came to light in 1912 faded Python's star as Jean-Marie Musy rose to power. Victim of a stroke in 1912 and tired of internal party arguments, Python gradually withdrew without giving up his mandate. Even if he landed last in the elections of 1921 and 1926, they still showed the reputation that he continued to enjoy among the people.

The University of Freiburg , founded in 1889, formed the cornerstone of the regime. The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, which was set up after the Faculty of Law, Philosophy (1889) and theological Faculty (1890), had to support the industrial development of the canton. The project of a medical faculty brought the question of a cantonal hospital to the fore, which was finally built in 1920 in Gambach and Pérolles. The central role played by the Education Directorate and the charisma of its director allowed Python to exert his influence in all areas of politics.

Even as a councilor and commission spokesman, Python took part in the drafting of the law on primary education (1884). As the director of education, he set up a teaching material center (1889) and campaigned for the improvement of training and salaries for teaching staff. With the new Primary School Act, he was not only concerned with raising the level of primary education, which had proven to be inadequate in an intercantonal comparison, but also with preventing the liberal currents in the school system, for example in the Murten region and the Gruyère region . At secondary level, he promoted the establishment of a cantonal high school for girls (1909). His attention was also directed to vocational instruction, which was actually the responsibility of the Interior Directorate, on the one hand to promote agriculture (cheese-making school 1888, winter agricultural courses from which the agricultural school emerged in 1900) and, on the other hand, to encourage those industrial trains that tended to be conservative (Law on the vocational school or the technical center 1903). In addition, home economics lessons were made compulsory for girls (1904), as well as a higher commercial school for girls (1905) and a nursing school (1913).

In Bern, Python sat in the National Council after the parliamentary elections from 1884 to 1893 . There he proved to be an influential parliamentarian. In particular in the railway sector with the purchase of the Swiss Central Railway (1891) and in education with his intervention in the discussion of primary school subsidies (1902) he appeared as a staunch federalist. In the Council of States , to which he was a member from 1896 to 1920, he was involved in drafting the law on health insurance and accidents (1900). At the constitutional level, he supported the initiatives for a popular election of the Federal Council (1900) and for the introduction of the proportional representation system in the National Council elections (1900) in order to enable his party to have greater representation at the federal level; At the cantonal level, however, he rejected this system because it would have meant a worsening of the situation for his own party. In 1915 he was President of the Council of States.

With the university and the other institutions, Python created some pillars of the economic, political and cultural life of the canton. The costs of this modernization, however, put a strain on the budget and the later development of the canton. The priority given to the traditional economy - out of conviction and fear of socialism that could gain weight in an urban industrial workforce - delayed Freiburg's real industrial boom.

As a representative of social Catholicism , Python participated with the Union de Friborg in the preparation of the social encyclical Rerum Novarum .

Commemoration

A real cult of remembrance arose around the politician, who was called the “second founder of Freiburg” on his centenary birthday in 1956: the main square in the city of Freiburg is named after him, in the chapel of Posieux he is immortalized with a fresco (1924) and in the Freiburg choir St. Nicholas Cathedral with a Window (1936). While the scandals and the appropriation of the state apparatus were long forgotten, what was remembered above all was the successes of his interventionism and the achievements that demonstrated the success of the regime, both physically and mentally.

literature

• Georges Andrey , John Clerc, Jean-Pierre Dorand et Nicolas Gex: The Freiburg Council of State: 1848–2011. History, organization, members . Editions La Sarine, Freiburg 2012, ISBN 978-2-88355-153-4 .
• Pierre-Philippe Bugnard: Python, Georges. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Footnotes

1. ^ Francis Python: The "Union de Friborg". In: Nicolas Michel (ed.): Rerum Novarum 1891–1991. Cent ans d'enseignement social chrétien / Hundred years of Christian social teaching . University of Freiburg (Switzerland), Friborg 1991, pp. 15–16, here p. 16.