Jacques Duhamel

Jacques Duhamel (born September 24, 1924 in Paris ; † July 8, 1977 there ) was a French politician who was a member of the National Assembly between 1962 and 1969 and again from 1973 until his death in 1977, and Minister of Agriculture between 1969 and 1971 and then from 1971 until 1973 was Minister of Culture.

Life

Family origins, World War II

Duhamel came from a middle-class Parisian family and was the son of Jean Duhamel, the general director of the coal mining association CCHF (Comité central des houillères de France) , who died after the beginning of the Second World War and after the German Wehrmacht invaded France in May 1940 . As a half-orphan he broke off his school education at the renowned Lycée Janson de Sailly and lived with his family in La Baule-Escoublac . In this city in the Loire-Atlantique department , he was shocked by the uncoordinated treatment of the refugees. He set up a provisional organizational center and was appointed refugee commissioner there by the Red Cross .

At this time he also joined the Resistance movement in 1942 and was arrested for his activities in 1942, so that he had to spend his 18th birthday in September 1942 in Fresnes prison . After the liberation of Paris in August 1944, he returned there and studied law and literature at the University of Paris and at the private college École libre des sciences politiques , founded by Émile Boutmy in 1872 , the forerunner of today's Institut d'études politiques de Paris . For his services in the resistance movement, he was awarded the Croix de guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance , while he received the Knight's Cross of the Legion of Honor from the hands of Edmond Michelet .

Professional activities in the post-war period

Edgar Faure became Duhamel's political mentor after the end of World War II

After the war, Duhamel continued his studies at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (SciencesPo) in the Rue Saint-Guillaume, where he obtained a law degree and a diploma in sociology . He then began his training at the ENA ( École nationale d'administration ) administration college in 1947 , where he belonged to the first year of the Promotion France combattante alongside François-Xavier Ortoli and Alain Peyrefitte . After a brief period in financial administration (Inspection des finances) , he became an employee of the Council of State ( Conseil d'État ) at the Palais Royal , which is both an administrative court and an advisory body to the government.

As a first class auditor (Auditeur de 1ère classe) at the State Council, Duhamel made the acquaintance of Edgar Faure in 1948 , who was to become his political mentor. When Faure was appointed State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance by Prime Minister Henri Queuille in February 1949 , Duhamel followed him to the Ministry on Rue de Rivoli as official and technical advisor . He worked there until July 1950 and then became Faures advisor during his tenure as Minister of Budget from July 1950 to August 1951 and as Minister of Justice between August 1951 and January 1952.

After Faure himself became Prime Minister for the first time on February 20, 1952, Duhamel became Deputy Head of Cabinet (Directeur adjoint de cabinet) of the Prime Minister in his office in the Hôtel Matignon on Rue de Varenne until the end of Faures' term on March 8, 1952. The office of He also served as deputy head of cabinet during Faure's tenure as finance and economics minister between June and November 1953. He then returned to the Conseil d'État in 1954 as an administrative officer with the title of maître des requêtes , before becoming vice-president on June 19, 1954 -Head of cabinet from Faure, who was now Minister for Finance, Economics and Planning. He then worked from January 29 to February 23, 1955 in this position during his tenure as Foreign Minister.

On March 4, 1955, Duhamel Faure followed, after he became Prime Minister for the second time, again in the Hôtel Matignon and this time took over the function of its head of cabinet (Directeur de cabinet) until the end of Faure's term on February 1, 1956. After that he was from 1956 to 1959 first deputy general director in the production commission or in the productivity commission. He then became General Delegate in January 1960 and then General Director of the National Center for Foreign Trade (Center national du commerce extérieur) from May 1960 to 1962 . At the same time he became a member of the board of directors of the tobacco monopoly administration SEITA (Service d'exploitationindustrie des tabacs et allumettes) on October 7, 1961 . At this time he also became a member of the Parti républicain, radical et radical-socialiste (PR).

Deputy and Minister of the Fifth Republic

Legislative period 1962 to 1967

On November 25, 1962, Duhamel was elected for the first time as a member of the National Assembly as a candidate for the electoral alliance Rassemblement démocratique in the second constituency of the Jura department, consisting of PR and Parti socialiste (PS) . In this department, which consists of the arrondissements of Dole , Lons-le-Saunier and Saint-Claude , he and his piggyback candidate (suppleant) Henri Jouffroy , who was also mayor of Chissey-sur-Loue , won 11,858 of the 46,345 votes in the first ballot . In the second ballot a week later, with 25,920 votes, he won a victory over his most important opponent, the mayor of Syam and Gaullist MP Max Montagne . By mobilizing voters, he won by a margin of 3,000 votes, with the Parti communiste français (PCF) also recommending his election. In his election campaign, unlike the then Prime Minister Michel Debré , who ran for election in the department's first constituency , he dealt exclusively with local issues such as equipping schools, cities, villages and trade. In doing so, he referred to his activities as President of the Society for the Cultivation and Sale of Agricultural Products and Food SOPEXA (Société pour l'expansion des ventes des produits agricoles et alimentaires) .

In the National Assembly in the Palais Bourbon he joined the parliamentary group of the Rassemblement démocratique and at the same time became a member of the important committee for finance, general economy and planning (Commission des finances, de l'économie générale et du plan) and became at the same time on 7 February 1963 member of the Advisory Committee for Cinematographic Films (Commission consultative du cinéma) . In addition, he was also a member of the General Council of the Canton of Dole in 1964 and first Vice-Mayor of Dole in 1964 .

Re-elected in 1967

In the election of March 12, 1967, Duhamel, who had been a member of the Board of Directors of the Center Democrate since 1966 , ran for the CD, Center national des indépendants et paysans (CNIP), Center démocratie et progrès (CDP) and Center républicain (CR) existing electoral alliance of the middle Progrès et démocratie modern again in the second constituency of the Jura department. In the first ballot he received 23,665 of the 56,440 votes and he was elected with 29,509 votes in the subsequent second ballot. Two of the three other candidates from the first ballot also ran in the second ballot: the PCF candidate, Maurice Faivre-Picon, and Pierre Grosperrin, the candidate of the Comité d'action et d'association pour la Vème République , who won 10,776 and 10,776 respectively 16,915 votes remained unsuccessful.

During this legislative period he joined the newly founded group Progrès et démocratie moderne (PDM), of which he became group chairman. Despite his friendship with the then Agriculture Minister Edgar Faure and Prime Minister Georges Pompidou , he pursued a policy of opposition to the government. First he was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Commission des affaires étrangères) for a year before becoming a member of the Committee on Finance, General Economics and Planning again in April 1968. In the course of the student unrest in May 1968 , he requested the establishment of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the suppression of the unrest and the formation of a control commission to investigate the administration and technology of national education.

Re-elected in 1968

After the dissolution of the National Assembly in the wake of the May riots in 1968, Duhamel ran again for a seat in parliament in the subsequent elections and in the second ballot on June 30, 1968, clearly defeated his Communist opponent with a majority of 30,000 votes and won with 37,531 of the 48,177 votes cast, elected for the third time. He benefited from the fact that the Gaullist candidate, Robert Grossmann , did not run again in the second ballot and 8,000 voters did not vote in the second ballot. Impressed by the May riots, he called for a change in society in his election campaign, albeit an orderly change (changement dans l'ordre) , which would bring about a “new majority, new forces, new politics and a new democracy” ('une majorité nouvelle 'de forces nouvelles, d'une politique nouvelle et d'une démocratie nouvelle').

At the beginning of the fourth legislative term he was again chairman of the PDM parliamentary group and on July 13, 1968 a member of the Committee on National Defense and the Armed Forces (Commission de la défense nationale et des forces armées) . In a legislative initiative of October 29, 1968, he called for the modification and expansion of the rules of procedure of the National Assembly. He also worked intensively on issues of public education, higher education and youth policy, which led to conflicts with his old mentor Edgar Faure, who after the May riots on July 12, 1968 Minister of National Education in the Government of Prime Minister Maurice Couve de Murville had become. In 1968 he also became a member of the French- North Vietnamese Friendship Committee.

Minister in the Chaban-Delmas government

Minister of Agriculture 1969 to 1971

After the referendum on reform of the Senate and regionalization (Référendum sur la réforme du Sénat et la régionalisation) on April 27, 1969 and the election of his friend Georges Pompidou as President on June 15, 1969 , he trained within the PDM together with other younger politicians like Bernard Stasi , Joseph Fontanet and Jacques Barrot, the Center démocratie et progrès (CDP) came into being, of which he became president. The CDP based its policy on freedom of spirit, Christian morality and the reformist left .

On June 20, 1969, Duhamel was appointed by Jacques Chaban-Delmas as Minister of Agriculture (Ministre de l'Agriculture) in his cabinet and thus took over a ministerial office himself for the first time. In this role he tried to regulate the markets. In addition, in the deliberations on the budget drafts of 1970 and 1971, he presented three important draft laws, on the one hand a draft law for the protection of new varieties of plants, which enabled the breeding of new plants and thus made a contribution to agricultural research and technical support for development. In November 1970, a bill to improve forest structures followed. It emphasized the importance of forestry products for the trade balance. Finally, on November 11, 1970, a bill to defend long-term rural leases followed, in particular because of the outflow of capital for agriculture and as an offer of additional perks for restructuring.

Minister of Culture 1971 to 1973

As part of a reshuffle of the government Chaban-Delmas Duhamel took over on January 7, 1971 by André Bettencourt the post of Minister of Culture (Ministre des Affaires culturelles) , while he himself by Michel Cointat was replaced in the office of the Minister for Agriculture. He also held the office of Minister of Culture in the first cabinet of Prime Minister Pierre Messmer until March 28, 1973. The reason for taking over this ministerial office was his poor health after a car accident, especially since his work as Minister of Agriculture increasingly required obligations with the European Communities in Brussels . At the same time he was elected Mayor of Dole in spring 1971. He appointed Jacques Rigaud , who would later become RTL's managing director for many years, to be his head of cabinet in the Ministry of Culture on Rue de Valois . Duhamel tried to coordinate all cultural tasks of the various ministries. At the beginning of his term of office he drew a comparison to his two immediate predecessors André Malraux and Edmond Michelet with the words and described his work as Minister of Culture as follows:

“I don't think on the level of Malraux, I don't live on the level of Michelet, but I will get the inspiration to act from one and the other. It is better to have saved a thousand monuments for fifty years than to have saved fifty monuments for a thousand years. I know politics without opportunities, but I don't know politics without risks. "

«Je ne penserai pas au level de Malraux, je ne vivrai pas au level de Michelet, mais j'agirai en m'inspirant de l'un et de l'autre. Mieux vaut dans l'immédiat sauver mille monuments pour cinquante ans que cinquante pour mille ans. Je connais des politiques sans chances; je n'en connais pas sans risques. »

As Minister of Culture, he carried out reforms in the field of film censorship as well as the two opera houses Paris Opera and the Opéra-Comique , and appointed Rolf Liebermann as artistic director of the Opéra Garnier . He also submitted an amendment to the Architecture Act. In his personnel decisions in the state cultural institutes, he took no account of party political relationships and, for example, appointed Jack Lang as the director of the Théâtre national de Chaillot, succeeding personalities such as Jean Vilar and Georges Wilson, and supported the work of Roger Planchon , Patrice Chéreau and Roger Gilbert-Lecomte at the Théatre de la Cité de Villeurbanne , which became the Théâtre National Populaire during his term in 1972 , as did that of Louis Erlo , who became director of the Opéra-Studio de Paris in 1973 . In addition, he advocated Pierre Boulez's return from the USA and in 1972, together with Michel Guy, founded the Festival d'automne à Paris , a festival for various contemporary artists and cultural activities, and signed the acceptance for the implementation of the Center Georges-Pompidou . He also founded the Fund for Cultural Investment FIC (Fonds d'intervention culturelle) . On the other hand, he rejected the construction of other high-rise buildings such as the Tour CB21 in the La Défense district .

In the budget deliberations for 1972 Duhamel highlighted the work of the Ministry of Culture, which should aim to expand cultural policy in France and abroad, but also to recognize the social status of artists as well as the right of all citizens to access culture. In addition, he created aids to support cinemas and prepared an extensive cultural policy for the regions of France. In the budget deliberations in 1973, he called for all ministries to contribute to the costs of the classical monuments. In addition, he suggested drawing up a social plan for writers and in 1973 became a member of the editorial team of Bulletin Faits et causes .

In consultation with the President of the Pompidou Republic , Duhamel resigned from his ministerial office on March 29, 1973 after the spring elections.

Re-election 1973 and last years of life

With these he had run again for the second constituency in the Jura department. In the first ballot on March 4, 1973, he narrowly missed his re-election and received 49.3 percent of the votes. In the second round of voting on March 11, 1973, he was elected a member for the fourth time. The election of six other candidates had made a second ballot likely, in which his socialist opposing candidate received around 10,000 of the 60,125 votes cast. This time Duhamel was campaigning on national political issues. The communists, who had formed an alliance with the socialists in the 1972 local election program, which was unique in Western Europe , were portrayed as a risk to the country.

After his re-election, Duhamel joined the faction of the Union Centriste , which had emerged from the PDM, and of which he became group chairman on April 26, 1973. He remained in this capacity until April 2, 1974, the day President Pompidou died. He then joined the parliamentary group of reformers, centrists and social democrats RCDS (Réformateurs, centristes et démocrates sociaux) on July 10, 1974 and later joined the Center des démocrates sociaux (CDS) founded by Jean Lecanuet in 1976 , which also includes his old ones Friends of the CDP joined.

During this legislative period, he was a member of the Committee on Constitutional Law, Legislation and General Administration of the Republic (Commission des lois constitutionnelles, de la législation et de l'administration générale de la République) from April to December 1973 and then between December 1973 and May 1975 Member of the Committee on Production and Trade (Commission de la production et des échanges) , before being a member of the Committee on Culture, Families and Social Affairs from May 1975 until his death on July 8, 1977 (Commission des affaires culturelles, familiales et sociales ) was. For his services to the wine region Jura , he was of the Wine Brotherhood Commanderie des Vins du Jura Nobles et du Comté to the "Ambassador of the wine region" appointed.

Jacques Duhamel died on July 8, 1977 after a long illness from the consequences of multiple sclerosis at the age of 52 in Paris. His marriage to Colette Rousselot in 1947 had four sons: Jérôme Duhamel, who was killed in a traffic accident in 1971, the legal scholar Olivier Duhamel, who taught constitutional law at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, the journalist Stéphane Duhamel, who was RTL's program director and editor-in-chief of the daily La Provence between 2000 and 2001 , and the doctor Gilles Duhamel, who worked for the General Inspectorate for Social Affairs IGAS (Inspection générale des affaires sociales) .

Web links

• Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly
• French Ministeries (rulers.org)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Chaban-Delmas cabinet
2. ↑ French Ministeries (rulers.org)
3. ↑ Eric Roussel: Georges Pompidou , 2004
4. ↑ Messmer I cabinet