Léo Lagrange

Politician
Léo Lagrange
Léo Lagrange at the 1932 Congress of Socialists
Functions
Ministerial Director for Leisure and Sport June 4, 1936 - April 8, 1938
government	Léon Blum I. and II. Camille Chautemps II. And VI.
predecessor	Item not yet created
successor	André Viénot
Member of the 1st constituency of Avesnes-sur-Helpe
Electoral term	15th parliamentary term of the third French republic
Political party	Electoral alliance of the COM
biography
Birth Name	Léon Lagrange
born	November 28, 1900
place of birth	Bourg sur Gironde ( Gironde )
died	June 9, 1940
Place of death	Évergnicourt ( Aisne )
Party member	SFIO
job	Lawyer

Léon Lagrange (born November 28, 1900 in Bourg-sur-Gironde , † June 9, 1940 in Évergnicourt ) was a French socialist, ministerial director for sport and leisure under the front populaire . In his youth he was a member of the Éclaireurs de France , he founded the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO) after the break with Tours in 1920 and became editor of the newspaper Le Populaire , the organ of the SFIO. In 1932 he was elected as a member of the Cartel des gauches electoral list and got the post of Sous-Sécretaire d'État in the Blum government . He supported the holding of the People's Olympiad in Barcelona , which had been organized as a counter-event to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin , in order to avoid Nazi propaganda.

biography

Léo Lagrange, Minister of Leisure (1936)

As a youth he was with the Éclaireurs de France , a scout movement that was still non-denominational at the time; it is now available under the name Éclaireuses Éclaireurs De France: "Le Mouvement Laïque du Scoutisme Français" . After finishing school ( Lycée Henri IV ), he enlisted in the army, although he was not yet 18 years old. After completing his military service, he enrolled at the Faculty of Law and the Institut d'études politiques . On the eve of the Tours Congress (December 1920), he joined the SFIO, led by Paul Faure , Jean Longuet and Léon Blum , and joined the group of socialist students.

After becoming a lawyer, he was enrolled in the Paris Bar in 1922. He was so shocked by the consequences of the war that he campaigned primarily for those suffering from tuberculosis and lungs, as well as those who had been damaged by the use of poison gas .

In 1925 he married Madeleine Weiller (1900–1992). The following year he met André Malraux , Clara Goldschmidt / Malraux and Jean Prévost . Léo Lagrange interfered in the discussions of intellectuals in the 1930s; Numerous writers, historians, artists and scientists took part. After becoming editor of the newspaper Le Populaire , the organ of the SFIO, he mainly commented on the current legal situation.

He ran in 1928 as a candidate in the 11th arrondissement (Paris) , but he lost. In the May 1932 elections he was the socialist candidate for the constituency of Avesnes-sur-Helpe ( North ). In his election rallies, he emphasized above all that the working class must be educated and organized if it is to rule one day. When he was elected, he became Ministerial Director (French: sous-secrétaire d'État ) for sport and leisure under the Minister for Public Health, Henri Sellier , in the government of the Popular Front in 1936. It was the first time that such a ministry was set up to advocate compliance with paid vacation and time off for workers; in this Léo Lagrange saw in the allegiance of Albert Thomas the condition for human dignity. He surrounded himself mainly with people who had gained experience in the great war and who campaigned for the unity of the SFIO and the Communist Party (Lagrange was part of the current that was called the socialist battle ).

So his mission is aimed at society as a whole and not just at the youth. Nonetheless, he relied on it without wanting to take it over, because it constitutes the future of a society.

He was committed to developing sporting, tourist and cultural leisure activities. He invented the device: billet populaire de congés annuels , a pass that gave a 40% discount on rail travel; he gave the impetus for a youth hostel. For the first time there were trips with special trains to the snow holidays and reduced prices on the mountain railways; cruises were also organized.

Léo Lagrange also took care of the People's Olympiad , which was to be held in Berlin as an alternative to the 1936 Summer Olympics . It was scheduled for Barcelona , but the official qualifying exams took place on July 4, 1936 at the Stade Pershing in Paris. Léo Lagrange chaired this event. 1200 French athletes signed up for this anti-fascist Olympiad through their club or in person . However, on July 9, all right-wing parties voted to participate in the Berlin Games, while the left-wing parties (including the PCF ) abstained - with the exception of Pierre Mendès France . Nevertheless, French athletes went to Barcelona, ​​where the Olympics were canceled on July 18, 1936 by Franco's coup ( pronunciamiento ) .

After leaving the post of ministerial director, he became president of the youth hostels' lay committee. After the declaration of war in 1939 - at that time he was still a parliamentarian - he volunteered for the military; on June 9, 1940 he was killed in a shell explosion near Évergnicourt .

His widow, Madeleine, became a militant socialist and a member of the 1945 Constituent Assembly .

"The mortal in the courage, in the research of the vérité et in the dignité. C'était un homme que nous aimions. »

“He died courageously, in search of the truth and with dignity. It was a man we loved. "

- André Malraux

Mass sports, professional sports

Here are some quotes from Léo Lagrange on these topics:

• In sport we should choose between two concepts:

- There is spectator sport and limited participation for a small number of privileged people.

- As a second concept, mass sport should be supported, whereby the joy of watching and winning should not be neglected.

We want everyone (workers, farmers, unemployed) to find joy in life and a sense of their dignity in their leisure activities.

(Léo Lagrange in a speech on June 10, 1936)

• It is our simple and humanitarian goal to give French young people the opportunity to find happiness and health in the practice of sport and to find balance and relaxation from everyday work through the possibility of leisure activities.

(Léo Lagrange, Ministerial Director for Sport and Leisure)

• Our efforts are not so much aimed at creating winners and showing 22 athletes to the 40,000 or 100,000 spectators in the stadiums, but rather to get the youth of our country to regularly go to the sports field or to the swimming pool themselves.

(Léo Lagrange, during the 1937 budget debate, quoted from JP Callède)

• It is a moral duty to make the same efforts in sport as in any other field. I have listened with great interest to the remarks of M. Temple, who pointed out the unfortunate dangers in the development of professional sport. But unfortunately it is difficult to find the right balance when a human activity, which is naturally untargeted, is turned into the pursuit of profit.

I believe that the morale of the sport has been badly damaged from the moment the stadiums were allowed to turn a profit.

Therefore, I will vehemently oppose the development of professional sport in our country, despite the often strong criticism of my actions. I feel it is my responsibility to Parliament to serve the interests of all French young people and not to create new circus games.

(Léo Lagrange, Ministerial Director in the Ministry of Sport, explains his policies and those of the Front Nationale to the Chamber of Deputies on December 3, 1937)

Subsequent honors

• The first clubs Léo Lagrange (later they became the Fédération Léo Lagrange ) were founded in 1950 by Pierre Mauroy , then secretary of the Jeunes Socialistes .
• A station in Villejuif on line 7 of the Paris Métro bears his name.
• Many stadiums and sports halls bear his name. ( Stade du Ray , stadiums in the cities of Nice , Besançon , Cachan and others)
• In Nantes and Toulouse Olympic swimming places are named after him.
• A park in Reims bears his name.
• A street in Saint-Denis (Réunion) bears his name.
• In Châteauneuf-les-Martigues a ballroom was named after him.
• He was buried in Bourg-sur-Gironde , where the stadium bears his name.
• The class of officers at the Draguignan Artillery School , who graduated at the end of March 1983, were christened Léo Lagrange .
• Léo Lagrange was subsequently honored with the War Cross 1939, because he died in the battle of 1940.

literature

• Yann Lasnier, Léo Lagrange - L'artisan du temps libre , Mémoire (s) du socialisme, ( ISBN 978-2-916333-28-1 ) Link to the author
• Jean-Louis Chappat, Les Chemins de l'espoir ou Combats de Léo Lagrange , Éditions Fédération Léo-Lagrange, 1983 ( ISBN 2-904434-01-1 )
• Christine Bouneau et Jean-Paul Callède, Léo Lagrange: une perspective de renouvellement dans la construction des jeunes générations? , Maison des Sciences de l'Homme d'Aquitaine, 2012, ( ISBN 9782858924097 ) Link to the author .
• Jean-Pierre Chabrol, dans sa trilogy Les Rebelles - La Gueuse - L'Embellie , évoque largement Léo Lagrange et plusieurs personnalités de l'époque.

Web links

• Authority files : viaf.org , isni.org , BnF Catalog général , idref.fr
• Madeleine Léo Lagrange, Le Présent indéfini, mémoires d'une vie , Éditions Corsaire
• Official website of the "Léo Lagrange Federation"

References and comments

1. ↑ ^{a b} The equation with the German scouts is difficult, since the French scouts are organized strictly secular . (cf. Éclaireuses éclaireurs de France ( Memento des Originals of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ) 
2. ↑ ^{a b} At the Congress in Tours there was a break with the Communist Party.
3. ↑ In France this is called "Barreau"; Barreau de Paris includes the lawyers admitted to the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris .
4. ↑ The "Assemblée constituante" (see fr: Assemblée constituante # Les Assemblées constituantes de la IVe République ) founded the Fourth French Republic in 1945 .