Jean Chamant

Jean Chamant

Jean Jules Eugène Marie Chamant (born November 23, 1913 in Chagny , Saône-et-Loire department , † December 22, 2010 in Paris ) was a French politician who was a member of the National Assembly for 25 years and also from 1977 to 1995 a member of the Senate was. Chamant served from 1955 to 1956 as State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from 1959 to 1967 as Vice President of the National Assembly. In addition, he was Minister of Transport between 1967 and 1969 and again from 1971 to 1972 and Vice President of the Senate between 1989 and 1995.

Life

Lawyer

Chamant completed his school education in Avallon and at the Institut Saint-Joseph in Joigny and began studying law at the University of Paris , from which he graduated with a law degree. During his studies he was one of the co-founders of the Jeunes de l'union nationale des combattants and was admitted to the Paris Court of Appeal (Cour d'appel de Paris) in 1937 and shortly afterwards also acted as secretary of the Paris Bar Association from 1937 to 1938 Conference des avocats . After being unable to practice his profession for some time due to health reasons, he worked as a freelancer outside of Paris and only returned to Paris after the liberation of Paris at the end of August 1944.

Fourth republic

Member of the National Assembly

There Chamant met the politician Jean Moreau , who offered him third place on the list for the Action républicaine et sociale in the Yonne department for the elections to the second constituent national assembly on June 2, 1946. However, his candidacy was unsuccessful. A few months later, in second place on this list, he was first elected a member of the National Assembly in the elections to the National Assembly on November 10, 1946. He achieved the best election result with 49,955 of the 128,820 votes cast. The other two seats to be awarded fell to the Parti communiste français PCF (37,655 votes) and the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière SFIO, to which 25,176 votes fell. In 1947 he was also elected a member of the Sen municipal council and was re-elected in 1953.

During his parliamentary membership, Chamant was a member of the Committee on Justice and Legislation between 1946 and 1951, and last served as secretary of this committee from 1950 to 1951. In addition, he was a member of the committee for pardon proposals for Algeria in 1947 and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in 1948. He also acted on April 22, 1948 as rapporteur for the Judiciary Committee and submitted three reports on the modification of the law of April 28, 1919 on the organization of justice and judicial careers. On June 7, 1949, he was nominated by Parliament as a judge at the Supreme Court of Justice (Haute Cour de justice) .

In the elections of June 17, 1951, Chamant was re-elected as a candidate for the Union des nationaux indépendants et républicains (UNIR) in the constituency of Yonne and this time achieved 38,845 of the 124,774 votes cast. The list won 30.1 percent and three seats in this department, while the fourth mandate fell to Léon Noël from the Rassemblement du peuple français (RPF). This time he was a member of the Committee on Justice and Universal Suffrage and during this time acted twice in 1952 and 1955 as rapporteur for bills reforming the code of criminal procedure. In addition, he was vice-chairman of the UNIR parliamentary group .

State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry and the 1956 elections

After Prime Minister Edgar Faure had to reshuffle his second government because of the resignation of the ministers of the Union des républicains d'action sociale (URAS) on October 20, 1955 , Chamant was appointed State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry and thus became the closest collaborator of his party friend Antoine Pinay , who held the post of Foreign Minister . As State Secretary he was responsible in particular for the affairs of Morocco and Tunisia and, following the resignation of Henri Laforest, also responsible for relations with associated states. He held the post of State Secretary until February 1, 1956.

In the early elections of January 2, 1956, Chamant ran on the new Union des indépendants et paysans list, chaired by Jean Moreau, who was a Member of Parliament and Mayor of Auxerre , and received 33,329 of the vote (24.2 percent) in the department's constituency Yonne. The election of the candidate of the Poujadist Union de défense des commerçants et artisans (UDCA), Jean Lamale , initially elected with 18,825 votes , was later declared invalid by the National Assembly on May 30, 1956 and these votes were awarded to Chamant. However, on May 31, 1956, he renounced the votes he was awarded from a controversial election and then ran again on July 15, 1956, this time being re-elected with 53,694 of the 95,760 votes.

In this third legislative period he will become a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Committee on Labor and Social Security.

Fifth Republic

Vice-President of the National Assembly from 1959 to 1967

Chamant was re-elected a member of the National Assembly in the second ballot on November 30, 1958 in the second constituency of Yonne and joined the faction of the Indépendants et paysans de l'action sociale (IPAS). Less than a year later, on October 6, 1959, he was also elected Vice-President of the National Assembly. He held this office until 1967.

In the first round of elections on November 18, 1962, he was re-elected as a member of the National Assembly. Shortly afterwards, like Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, he left the Center national des indépendants et paysans (CNI) and joined the faction of the Républicains indépendants (RI). In June 1966 he was also elected vice-president of the resulting Fédération nationale des Républicains indépendants (FNRI). For the FNRI, he was re-elected a member of the National Assembly in the first round of the elections of March 5, 1967.

In addition, Chamant was elected a member of the General Council (Conseil général) of the Yonne department in 1965, of which he was president until 1992.

Transport Minister 1967 to 1969 and 1971 to 1972

Thanks to his good relations with Jacques Chaban-Delmas , he was appointed Minister of Transport (Ministre des Transports) in his fourth cabinet by Prime Minister Georges Pompidou on April 7, 1967 . He also held this position in the subsequent Couve de Murville cabinet until June 22, 1969. The end of the term of office of President Charles de Gaulle had meant that he was initially not taken into account in the subsequent formation of the Chaban-Delmas government .

After leaving the government, he was re-elected member of parliament in October 1969 in a by-election in the second constituency of Yonne as the successor to Georges Barillon .

After the death of his own successor Raymond Mondon on December 31, 1970, Chamant was reappointed Transport Minister in his cabinet on January 7, 1971 by Prime Minister Chaban-Delmas and held this ministerial office until July 6, 1972. As Minister of Transport, he was instrumental in the Introduction of the programs for the Airbus , TGV and the later Concorde project involved.

Re-elected in 1973 and Senator from 1977 to 1995

In the first ballot on March 4, 1973, Chamant was re-elected as a member of the National Assembly and was a member until October 6, 1977. From 1974 to 1978 he was also President of the Regional Council of Burgundy (Conseil régional de Bourgogne) . He also served as Mayor of Avallon between 1977 and 1983 .

In 1977 Chamant was elected a member of the Senate for the first time, where he joined the group of Républicains indépendants et d'action sociale . During his tenure as a member of the Senate, he was initially a member of the Committee on Finance, Budgetary Control and National Accounting (Commission des finances, du contrôle budgétaire et des comptes de la Nation) . Due to his rural constituency, he also dealt with agricultural issues and the problems of farmers.

After the presidential election in France in 1981 , Chamant joined the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), chaired by Jacques Chirac , and joined the Senate parliamentary group led by Charles Pasqua . At the same time he became a member of the Central Committee of the RPR, but still maintained relationships with centrists and liberals, which led to the fact that in the Senate elections on September 28, 1986 in Burgundy, he and Jean-Pierre Soisson shared a list of the RPR and Union pour la démocratie française (UDF). He remained a member of the Finance Committee and also became a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Commission des affaires étrangères) in October 1986 and the Legislative Committee (Commission des lois) in October 1989 .

Vice-President of the Senate from 1989 to 1995 and unsuccessful candidacy in 1995

Chamant became Vice President of the Senate in 1989 and, as such, advocated the introduction of parliamentary television, which was included in the National Assembly in October 1994. Later broadcasts of the Senate sessions from the Palais du Luxembourg began with a budget of 25 million francs (3.8 million euros ) at the time. He held the office of Vice President of the Senate until 1995.

At the age of 82, Chamant announced that he would run for a third term in the Senate on September 24, 1995. After criticism arose because of his advanced age, he referred to Jean-Baptiste Bienvenu-Martin , who was still a member of the Senate at the time of his death in 1940 at the age of 97. He also pointed out that, alongside Jacques Chaban-Delmas and Raymond Marcellin, he was the last member of the first post-war parliament in 1946.

Together with 27 other senators of the RPR, he spoke out in favor of a candidacy by Édouard Balladur in place of party chairman Chirac in the presidential election on April 23, 1995 . The later election victory of Jacques Chirac with Jacques Chirac 15,763,027 votes (52.64 percent) against Lionel Jospin (14,180,644 votes, 47.36 percent) from the Parti socialiste (PS) in the second ballot on May 7, 1995 in no way strengthened his position in the party. Before the Senate elections on September 24, 1995, the RPR decided not to support any candidate older than 80 years. Then Chamant ran as an independent candidate, but only achieved fifth place in the first ballot in the Burgundy region and thus left the Senate.

For his many years of service, Chamant was among other things commander of the Legion of Honor .

Web links

• Entry on the Senate homepage
• Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly (1st legislative period)
2. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly (2nd legislative period)
3. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly (3rd legislative period)
4. ↑ Pompidou IV cabinet
5. ^ Cabinet Pompidou IV (remodeling)
6. ↑ Couve de Murville cabinet
7. ↑ ^{a b} Eric Roussel: Georges Pompidou , 2004
8. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly (4th legislative period)
9. ↑ Chaban-Delmas cabinet
10. ^ French Ministeries on rulers.org
11. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly (5th legislative period)