Jacques Soustelle

Jacques Soustelle (born February 3, 1912 in Montpellier , † August 6, 1990 in Neuilly-sur-Seine ) was a French politician, anthropologist and ethnologist who specialized in Latin American civilizations. In 1938 he became vice director of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris .

Life

Gravestone in Miribel (Ain)

Soustelle studied philology and philosophy in Lyon and entered the École normal supérieure in 1929 as the best in the admission procedure . In 1930 he completed his studies in ethnology with a diploma. After the aggregation in 1932 he received his doctorate in 1937. Between 1932 and 1939 Soustelle undertook extensive research trips to research pre-Columbian cultures in Central and South America, especially Mexico , which established his scientific reputation. He taught at the Collège de France , the École nationale de la France d'outre-mer and from 1951 also at the École pratique des hautes études .

politics

In 1940 he joined the Resistance group at the Musée de l'Homme , which published an underground newspaper in occupied Paris. He joined General Charles de Gaulle in London , who sent him to Latin America in 1941, where he organized support for Free France . In particular , the Free French received financial support from their Mexican exile. From 1942 he was a member of the government in exile in London and in June 1943 became head of the Direction Générale des Services Spéciaux (DGSS) in Algiers , the combined secret service of the Free France de Gaulle and the French army in North Africa under their commandant Henri Giraud . In 1944 Soustelle was briefly Prefect in Bordeaux , before de Gaulle made him Minister of Information in 1945, and later Minister of Colonialism in the Provisoire de la République Française (GPRF). From 1947 to 1951 Soustelle was the first general secretary of the Gaullist party RPF .

As Governor General of Algeria from 1955 to 1956 appointed by Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France , he endeavored to "integrate" the Muslim population of the Algerian departments into the French state association and to gradually equate this population with French citizens of Christian or Jewish denomination. Although they had received French citizenship in 1944 and the discriminatory code de l'indigénat had been abolished, there were still de facto legal - such as class suffrage - and, above all, economic differences. However, these efforts came several years too late to take the wind out of the sails of the FLN , which was fighting for independence . Soustelle resolutely stuck to the idea of ​​a plus grande France including Algeria and strictly rejected the anti-colonialism that has meanwhile become widespread among French intellectuals . In the FLN he saw a kind of return of National Socialism and a threat to the French state, which is why he approved of their violent fight.

Soustelle assisted de Gaulle's return to power in 1958 in the formation of the Fifth Republic and became its Minister of Information. In the following year Soustelle belonged to Michel Debrés' cabinet as Minister of State for the overseas departments and nuclear issues. Since Soustelle fell out with de Gaulle when he granted the Algerian population the right to self-determination , he was dismissed from the cabinet and expelled from the Gaullist UNR party in 1960 . His advocacy of Algeria remaining within the French national association led to his being prosecuted as a member of the right-wing terrorist organization de l'armée secrète (OAS). Like Georges Bidault , a Compagnon de la Liberation , Soustelle lived in exile from 1961 . In 1968 he was granted an amnesty , and in 1969 he returned to France.

Soustelle was a member of the French National Assembly three times . First he represented the constituency of Mayenne from 1945 to 1946 , the constituency of Rhône as a Gaullist between 1951 and 1958 and as a non-attached member of parliament from 1973 to 1978. From 1973 he was also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Western European Union . In 1983 he was elected to the Académie française .

Works

• Aimée et souffrante Algérie . Plon, Paris 1956.
• Envers et contre tout. Souvenirs et documents sur la France libre . Laffront Paris 1947

1. 1940-1942. De Londres à Alger .
2. 1942-1944. D'Alger à Paris .

• L'ésperance trahie. 1958-1961 . Edition de l'Alma, Paris 1962.
• La famille Otomi-Pame du Mexique Central . Dissertation, University of Paris 1937.
• The art of ancient Mexico ( "L'art du Mexique ancien" ). Fromm, Osnabrück 1968.
• Aztec life. Mexico on the eve of the Spanish conquest ( " La vie quotidienne des Aztèques à la veille d la conquête espagnoles" ). Manesse-Verlag, Zurich 1993 ( Manesse Library of World History ), ISBN 3-7175-8086-8 .
• La longue marche d'Israël . Fayard, Paris 1968.
• Les Maya . Flammarion, Paris 1982, ISBN 2-08-200446-5 .
• Mexico ( "Mexique" ). Heyne, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-453-35003-0 .
• Les quatre soleils. Souvenirs et reflections d'un ethnologue en Mexique . Plon, Paris 1979, ISBN 2-266-01243-6 .
• The dream of France's greatness. 28 years of Gaullism ( "Vingt-huit ans de gaullisme" ). Blick-und-Bild-Verlag, Velbert 1969.
• The Olmecs. Origins of the Mexican civilizations ( "Les Olmèques" ). Atlantis-Verlag, Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7611-0590-8 .
• L'univers des aztèques . Hermann, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-7056-5901-3 .

literature

• Jacqueline de Durand-Forest (ed.): Mille ans de civilizations Mésoaméricaines des Mayas aux Aztèques. Mélanges en l'honneur de Jacques Soustelle . L'Harmattan, Paris 1995

1. Dans avec les dieux . ISBN 2-7384-3066-X
2. La quête de cinquième soleil . ISBN 2-7384-3200-X

• Bernard Ullmann: Jacques Soustelle, le mal aimé . Plon, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-259-02793-8 .

Web links

Commons : Jacques Soustelle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Jacques Soustelle in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French)
• The mirror 37/1961