Jean Rapenne

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Jean Rapenne (born June 6, 1901 in Belfort , † December 11, 1952 in Paris ; full name: Jean Alexandre Léon Rapenne ) was a French colonial official. He was governor of Niger , French Sudan , French Guiana and Inini .

Life

Jean Rapenne was the son of Léon Alexandre Rapenne, an officer of the 42nd Infantry Regiment stationed in Belfort, and his wife Marie Jeanne Arret. Jean Rapenne worked for a year in 1921 as an attaché to the Legislative Council of the French High Commission in Syria and Lebanon . From 1922 to 1924 he attended the École coloniale in Paris. In November 1924 he entered active military service. He was stationed in the Rhineland until April 1926 . Rapenne began his civil service in October 1926. He was transferred to the New Hebrides in 1928 and returned to Paris in 1932. There he was promoted to head of the Secretariat for Economic Affairs at the Colonial Ministry. He held this office until the end of 1937, when he was appointed Head of Cabinet of Minister Théodore Steeg .

Jean Rapenne's professional career subsequently took him to French West Africa : from 1939 to 1940 he was governor of Niger and from 1940 to 1941 interim governor of French Sudan. In March 1943, the double colony of French Guiana and Inini switched from the Vichy regime to the side of the Forces françaises libres . For the new post of governor of the colony, Jean Rapenne was the favorite of General Henri Giraud , while Giraud's political rival General Charles de Gaulle preferred Maurice Bertaut . With the help of the United States , which provided the plane for the transatlantic flight from Africa, Rapenne was able to install himself as governor in French Guiana and Inini before Bertaut. Under Governor Rapenne, the United States Air Force was allowed to build Cayenne-Rochambeau Airport as a military base there. De Gaulle's supporters accused Giraud's supporters of giving in to US interests in the French Caribbean too much. Rapenne then attempted to thwart several United States perks, including Puerto Rican work permits and tax breaks . His tenure ended in September 1944, when General de Gaulle prevailed as leader of free France and appointed Jules Surlement as the new governor of French Guiana and Inini.

Rapenne last lived in Paris.

Honors

On the Place des gouverneurs in Bamako , marble monuments with portrait reliefs commemorate the governors of French Sudan.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b RAPENNE Jean Alexandre Léon . Archives nationales website , accessed January 7, 2013.
  2. ^ Fitzroy André Baptiste: War, Cooperation, and Conflict. The European Possessions in the Caribbean, 1939-1945 . Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut 1988, ISBN 0-313-25472-9 , pp. 204-205.
  3. ^ Fitzroy André Baptiste: War, Cooperation, and Conflict. The European Possessions in the Caribbean, 1939-1945 . Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut 1988, ISBN 0-313-25472-9 , p. 213.
  4. ^ Humberto García-Muñiz and Rebeca Campo: French and American Imperial Accommodation in the Caribbean during World War II. The Experience of Guyane and the Subaltern Roles of Puerto Ricans . In: Alfred W. McCoy, Francisco A. Scarano (Eds.): Colonial Crucible. Empire in the Making of the Modern American State . The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin 2009, ISBN 978-0-299-23104-0 , p. 449.
personal data
SURNAME Rapenne, Jean
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rapenne, Jean Alexandre Léon (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French colonial administrator
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Belfort
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1952
Place of death Paris