Jean Zay

Jean Zay (1937)

Jean Zay (born August 6, 1904 in Orléans , † June 20, 1944 in the forest of Molles , Département Allier ) was a French politician.

life and work

His Jewish father was a journalist, his Protestant mother a primary school teacher. He was raised Protestant and secular. He attended elementary school and high school in Orléans .

After studying law, he became a lawyer, but was also very interested in journalism and literature. He wrote for the newspapers Progrès du Loiret and La France du Center, among others . He felt attracted to politics at an early age, became a member of the Parti radical in 1925 and was involved in its youth association. In 1932, Jean Zay was elected member of the second ballot in the Loiret constituency and was the youngest member of the French Chamber of Deputies at the age of 27 . Four years later he was re-elected on May 3, 1936 as a candidate for the Popular Front , which he was actively involved in bringing about . The socialist Prime Minister Léon Blum appointed Jean Zay Minister for National Education and the Fine Arts on June 4, 1936 . He held this ministerial office under the changing governments until his resignation on September 2, 1939. By joining the French army, he wanted to show solidarity with the people of his generation as a soldier. With the agreement of his superior, he took part in the extraordinary and dramatic session of the Chamber of Deputies on June 18, 1940 in Bordeaux . He and other members of parliament left for North Africa in order to continue the war from there. On August 16, 1940, Zay was arrested in Rabat , Morocco , accused of desertion by the Vichy government and returned to France and sentenced to life imprisonment in a political trial on October 4, 1940 in Clermont-Ferrand . During his imprisonment in Clermont-Ferrand, then in Marseille and finally in Riom, he wrote down his thoughts on the political future of France and events during his detention, under increasingly difficult conditions. They appeared in 1945 under the title Souvenirs et solitude (memories and loneliness).

While the Allies had already landed in Normandy, Jean Zay was kidnapped on 20 June 1944 by the Vichy militia from prison in Riom and on the same day in the forest of Molles in Vichy executed .

His work as a minister

Under the Minister for National Education and the Fine Arts Jean Zay, important educational policy projects were launched and fundamental reforms were decided, because for him, education was one of the most important tasks of the Popular Front government:

• Starting in October 1937, schooling was extended from 13 to 14 years of age as the earliest possible end
• Increase in the number of classes
• Physical education became compulsory.
• Establishment of school canteens and conventional medicine
• Promotion of technology and hygiene lessons
• Increase in the number of scholarships and their financial increase
• Increase in the number of holiday camps
• The Center National de la Recherche Scientifique ( CNRS ) was founded on October 19, 1939 under President Albert Lebrun
• Foundation of the Musée de l'Homme
• Opening of the Palais de la Découverte
• Project for an administration college, École nationale d'administration , which was not implemented until 1945

Honor

On May 27, 2015, the remains of Zay, along with those of Germaine Tillion , Pierre Brossolette and Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz , were transferred to the Panthéon . This is the highest posthumous honor in France; the May 27 since 2014, the Journée nationale de la Résistance , a nationwide state memorial.

predecessor	Office	successor
Henri Guernut	Minister of Education of France June 4, 1936 - September 2, 1939	Yvon Delbos

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Documents - Documents. Journal for the German-French dialogue. H. 2, Sommer / Éte 2014, ISSN  0012-5172 p. 109