Jean Royer

Jean Royer, 1974

Jean Royer (born October 31, 1920 in Nevers , Département Nièvre , † March 25, 2011 in Chambray-lès-Tours , Département Indre-et-Loire ) was a French politician of the Rassemblement du peuple français (RPF), the Union pour la Nouvelle République (UNR), Union pour la défense de la République (UDR) and most recently the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), which as minister , mayor of Tours and Member of the National Assembly campaigned against the spread of pornography and against abortions and therefore the nickname "father of shame" ( père la pudeur received), and in 1974 unsuccessfully for the post of state president candidate.

Life

Royer, who studied at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Poitiers after attending the École normal de Loches, first became a teacher in Langeais after taking the two state examinations ( License de lettres ) in 1945 .

In 1947 he became a member of the National Assembly for the first time as a candidate for the RPF in the Tours constituency , but lost this mandate after his electoral defeat in 1951. He then worked as a teacher in Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine until 1954, before becoming a lecturer for advanced training courses between 1954 and 1958 was in Tours.

Royer was re-elected to the National Assembly in 1958 and was a member of it for almost forty years until 1997. In 1959 he was also elected mayor of Tours and held this office until 1995. He was also a member of the General Council of the Indre-et-Loire department from 1961 to 1988 . During his tenure as mayor, he initiated numerous construction projects and infrastructure measures such as the connection to the TGV network to Paris , Bordeaux and Nantes and the construction of the Vinci congress center opposite the city's train station . In 1962 the town twinning with Mülheim an der Ruhr was established , and in 1973 he was awarded the Mülheim an der Ruhr ring of honor for promoting and expanding this partnership.

In April 1973 he was appointed Minister of Commerce and Crafts in the cabinet of Prime Minister Pierre Messmer . During this time he was particularly committed to the spread of pornography in the wake of the sexual revolution of the 1968 movement and was nicknamed "Father of Shame" ( père-la-pudeur ) for it. As part of a government reshuffle, he became Minister for Post and Telecommunications in the third Messmer Cabinet in February 1974 and was a member of this until April 1974.

After the death of President Georges Pompidou, he resigned as a minister to run for the presidential election in May 1974 . Royer presented himself as a candidate for moral order and law. He received 3.17 percent of the vote in the first ballot and thus did not make it into the runoff election on May 19, 1974. François Mitterrand (PS received 43.25 percent in the first ballot, the later election winner Valéry Giscard d'Estaing received 32.60 percent and Jacques Chaban-Delmas received 15.11 percent).

In 1995, after 36 years, he suffered a defeat in the election of Mayor of Tours to his socialist challenger Jean Germain .

Royer, who last lived in a retirement home in the suburbs of Tours, died of complications from his longstanding Alzheimer's disease .

Background literature

• Michel Jouet / Jean-Jacques Martin: Jean Royer, un réformisme autoritaire , 1975
• Christian Garbar: Jean Royer 1974. Objectif Élysée! , 1981

Web links

• Jean Royer in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• Bibliography (openlibrary.org)
• FRANCE SOIR: Jean Royer, maire de Tours et héros de l'anti-pornographie, est décédé (March 25, 2011)
• LA CROIX: L'ancien ministre Jean Royer est mort (March 25, 2011)
• LIBÉRATION: Jean Royer, ancien maire de Tours, est mort (March 25, 2011)
• Jean Royer passed away (acknowledgment on the homepage of the city of Mülheim an der Ruhr)