Henri Pharaon

Henri Philippe Pharaon (* 1898 in Alexandria , Egypt ; † August 6, 1993 in Beirut ) was a Lebanese politician and businessman .

biography

The son of a Melkite-Greek-Catholic businessman studied law at the Catholic University of Lyon after attending school in Switzerland .

Pharaon was active in the independence movement of Lebanon and is one of the fathers of the sovereignty of Lebanon from France on November 22, 1943. He was then elected a member of the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale du Leban) and belonged to it until 1946. He was responsible for the draft and design of the flag of Lebanon , which was officially adopted on December 7, 1943.

After independence, he was Foreign Minister during the tenure of Prime Minister Riyadh as-Solh in 1945 and again from 1946 to 1947 .

Although he was an opponent of French colonial rule , he was orientated towards the West and in 1949 he was the founder of the pro- European , non- Arab Mediterranean Party during the fierce debate on the country's western or Arab national identity that lasted almost 30 years later to the one between 1975 and 1990 Lebanese Civil War contributed. Pharaon himself was an advocate of a kind of " peaceful coexistence " between Christians and Muslims and therefore tried to mediate between the pro-Western and pro-Arab factions in the late 1950s during the Lebanon crisis in 1958 . However, when he was not appointed to the National Reconciliation Cabinet of Prime Minister Rashid Karami , which was formed in 1958 , he withdrew from politics.

For the next 30 years, however, he was head of the Beirut Port Authority and became not only a successful businessman and owner of the world's largest horse racing stable with Arab horses , but also an internationally respected antiques and art collector .

When he was found dead in his Beirut hotel room, his former driver and bodyguard was arrested for the crime. The police gave a robbery by Pharaon's former employees as the motive.

Web links

• rulers.org