Louis Mexandeau

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Louis Mexandeau (2008)

Louis Jean Mexandeau (born July 6, 1931 in Wanquetin , Department Pas-de-Calais ) is a former French politician of the Parti socialiste (PS), who between 1973 and 2002 was an intermittent member of the National Assembly and for several years Minister of Post and Telecommunications and Secretary of State for Veterans and War Victims.

Life

Studies and professional career

Mexandeau, son of a farmer, graduated after attending the Lycée in Arras studying History at the University of Lille , at the Sorbonne of the University of Paris and most recently at Sciences Po , he with the Agrégation completed and following took up a job as a teacher.

During this time, the Parti communiste français joined in 1952 and in 1953 also became a member of the National Office of the National Union of Secondary School Teachers (Syndicat national de l'Enseignement secondaire) , of which he was a member until 1957. At the same time he was also actively involved in the National Union of High School Teachers SNES (Syndicat National de l'Enseignement Supérieur) . In 1956 he resigned from the PCF after the bloody suppression of the popular uprising in Hungary . He became involved in the political left and in 1964 founded the Association of Theater Friends in the Caen House of Culture .

In 1961 Mexandeau became a teacher of history and geography at a secondary school and was then from 1963 to 1973 history teacher at the Lycée Malesherbe in Caen. At the same time, he was teaching at the École normal supérieure de jeunes filles (ENSJF) in Sèvres and at the École normal supérieure Lettres et sciences humaines (ENS LSH).

Unsuccessful candidacy for the National Assembly in 1968

In the presidential elections in France in 1965 he took part as an active supporter in the election campaign of François Mitterrand and was also the animator of the Association of Theater Friends in the House of Culture from 1965 to 1968. Together with his college friend Louis Mermaz , he founded the Convention des institutions républicaines (CIR), a small left-wing party founded in 1964 by Mitterrand, in the Calvados department .

In the elections of June 23, 1968, Mexandeau ran for the Fédération de la Gauche Démocrate et Socialiste (FDGS) in the first constituency of the Calvados department, and withdrew his candidacy after his poor performance in the first ballot. He then served between 1969 and 1971 as a member of the National Politburo of the CIR and as chairman of the FDGS in the Calvados department.

After the 1971 merger of the Parti socialiste (PS), founded in 1969, with the Fédération de la Gauche Démocrate et Socialiste (FDGS) and the Convention des Institutions Républicaines (CIR) at the party congress in Épinay-sur-Seine , the PS experienced the party elected there First secretary of the party, François Mitterrand, a reorientation. Mexandeau himself then became the first general secretary of the PS in the Calvados department in 1971 and held this position until 1973. Mexandeau, like other leading politicians of the PS like Michel Rocard , Lionel Jospin , Pierre Joxe , Catherine Trautmann , Louis Mermaz, Catherine Lalumière , Alain Bombard , Georgina Dufoix , Nicole Questiaux , Christian Sautter , François Scheer , Georges Filiou and Gaston Defferre belonged to the Protestant faith on.

Member of the National Assembly, Minister and State Secretary

First election in 1973 and education policy spokesman for the PS

Mexandeau was elected for the first time as a member of the National Assembly in the elections of March 11, 1973 as a candidate for the Parti socialiste in the first constituency of the Calvados department . At the same time he was elected on September 30, 1973 as a member of the General Council of the Calvados Department and represented the canton of Caen-2 until 1984 . He also became a member of the Regional Council of the Lower Normandy Region in November 1973 .

In February 1975 he became a national delegate of the PS and in this function was the party's spokesman for national education until 1976, and in 1976 he prepared an educational project for the party that led to massive criticism from private educational institutions.

On March 13, 1977, he ran unsuccessfully for the election of Mayor of Caen.

Re-elections in 1978 and 1981

In the subsequent elections on March 19, 1978, he was re-elected first constituency of the Calvados department. At the same time he was re-elected on March 25, 1979 in the canton of Caen-2 as a member of the general council of this department and shortly afterwards on April 8, 1979 also a member of the board of the PS. Furthermore, in October 1979 he was again National Delegate of the PS and as such again spokesman for his party's education policy. He was also elected in November 1979 as a member of the Central Committee of the Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme (LICRA), an international non-governmental organization founded in France in 1927 that is committed to the fight against racism and anti-Semitism .

In the elections of June 21, 1981, he was re-elected as a member of the National Assembly in the first constituency of the Calvados département with 59.6 percent of the votes cast.

Minister for Post and Telecommunications 1981-1986

After Mexandeau was appointed Minister for Post and Telecommunications (Ministre des PTT) by Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy in his first cabinet on May 22, 1981 and also in his second cabinet on June 23, 1981 , he resigned his seat on July 24, 1981 low. At the same time he was re-elected as a member of the General Council of the Caen Department in March 1983, where he now represented the Caen-3 canton .

As PTT minister, he presented the so-called Plan câble in 1982 , which envisaged that by 1992 six million households should be supplied with cable television . At the same time he was one of the supporters of the satellite operator Eutelsat , founded in 1982 , which, in his view, was necessary to assert the linguistic and cultural independence of France against “Coca-Cola satellites” of the Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT). At the same time, he worked with the then Minister for Industry and Research, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, to promote telematics .

On March 6, 1983, he was elected a member of the Caen Town Council. In the simultaneous election for mayor, he suffered another defeat and was again defeated by Jean-Marie Girault of the Union pour la démocratie française (UDF), who had been mayor of Caen since 1970 and a member of the Senate since 1971 .

When the Mauroy government was reshuffled on March 24, 1983 , Mexandeau lost its status as an independent minister and instead served as Assistant Minister for Post and Telecommunications at the Minister of Industry and Research (Ministre délégué auprès du ministre de l'industrie until July 17, 1984 et de la recherche, chargé des PTT) . In the subsequent cabinet of Prime Minister Laurent Fabius , he initially took on the role of Assistant Minister for Post and Telecommunications in the Ministry for Industrial Development and Foreign Trade on July 23, 1984 (Ministre délégué auprès du ministre du redéploiement industriel et du commerce extérieur, chargé des PTT) so that he was subordinate to the Minister for Industrial Development and Foreign Trade, Édith Cresson .

When the government was reshuffled on November 15, 1985, he was again promoted to Minister of Post and Telecommunications by a decree and held this ministerial office until the end of the term of office of the Fabius government on March 21, 1986.

At the same time, he was re-elected to the General Council of the Calvados Department on March 17, 1985 and represented the interests of the Caen-4 canton until 1988 .

Re-elections in 1986 and 1988

In the elections of March 16, 1986 Mexandeau was re-elected to the National Assembly for the Parti socialiste in the Calvados department. At the same time he was re-elected on March 16, 1986 as the lead candidate of the PS in the Calvados department as a member of the regional council of Lower Normandy.

During this eighth legislative term he was from April 4, 1986 to May 14, 1988 member of the Committee for Production and Exchange of Goods (Commission de la production et des échanges) . At the same time he was from April 30, 1986 to May 14, 1988 Deputy Member of Parliament's Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Measures. In addition, he served between June 11, 1987 and December 10, 1987 as vice-chairman of a special committee to investigate a case against Christian Nucci before the High Court of Justice (Haute cour de justice) consisting of members of parliament and others . Nucci was accused of being involved in the so-called Carrefour affair as Assistant Minister for Cooperation and Development in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with his head of cabinet Yves Chalier .

In May 1987 Mexandeau became deputy national secretary of the PS and as such was responsible for the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution .

On June 5, 1988, Mexandeau was re-elected to the National Assembly. After moving back to the Palais Bourbon , he became a member of the Committee for Finance, General Economics and Planning (Commission des finances, de l'économie générale et du Plan) on June 23, 1988 and was a member of this until June 17, 1991. During this period he was also special rapporteur for this committee from 7 July 1988 to 22 May 1991 and from 12 October 1988 to 17 June 1991 he was also a member of Parliament's Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Measures.

In addition, he became National Secretary of the PS for Education and a member of the party's executive office in July 1988. In 1990 he also took on the role of President of the Commission for the History of the PS.

State Secretary for Veterans 1991 to 1993 and re-elections 1993 and 1997

After Mexandeau was appointed Secretary of State for Veterans (Secrétaire d'Etat aux anciens combattants) in the government of Prime Minister Édith Cresson on May 18, 1991 , he resigned his parliamentary mandate on June 17, 1991, which was then taken over by Dominique Robert . He held the post of State Secretary until April 2, 1992. In the government of Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy that was formed on April 5, 1992 , he was appointed State Secretary for Veterans and War Victims (Secrétaire d'Etat aux anciens combattants et victimes de guerre) and held the office until March 29, 1993.

During his tenure, Serge Klarsfeld criticized the fact that the State Secretariat responsible for veterans did not also publish its archives on the collaboration of the Vichy government in the Holocaust , but rather withheld the existence of files and documents, the so-called Fichier juif .

On March 22, 1992, he was re-elected as a member of the Regional Council of Lower Normandy. In the elections of March 28, 1993 Mexandeau was re-elected for the PS in the department as a member of the National Assembly and in the elections of June 1, 1997 re-elected. He was a member of the National Assembly until the end of the eleventh legislative period on June 18, 2002 and was again a member of the Committee on Finance, General Economics and Planning between April 8, 1993 and June 18, 2002.

In the meantime he ran again in 1995 for the office of mayor of Caen, where he was narrowly defeated in the second ballot with 48.37 percent to Jean-Marie Girault, who received 51.63 percent of the vote. His renewed candidacy for the mayoral elections in Caen 2001 were also unsuccessful. This time he was clearly defeated in the second ballot with 42.08 percent against the new candidate for the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), Brigitte Le Brethon , who won 57.92 percent of the vote.

Publications

in German language
  • The Capetians. The Great Dynasties of Europe , Volume 13, 1969

Background literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Philip Short: Mitterrand: A Study in Ambiguity , 2013, ISBN 1-44819-189-0 , pp. 241, 276
  2. ^ Alistair Cole: Francois Mitterrand: A Study in Political Leadership . Routledge, 2013, ISBN 1-135-08671-0 , pp. 191 (English, limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ Geoffrey Adams: Political Ecumenism: Catholics, Jews, and Protestants in De Gaulle's Free France, 1940-1945 , 2006, ISBN 0-77357-666-5 , p. 378
  4. ↑ Yves Bizeul: Glaube und Politik , 2009, ISBN 3-53191-681-5 , p. 80.
  5. ^ William Safran: The Secular and the Sacred: Nation, Religion, and Politics . Frank Cass, London 2003, ISBN 0-7146-5368-3 , pp. 60 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  6. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly (5th legislative period)
  7. ↑ James F. Hollifield, George Ross (editor): Searching for the New France , 2013, ISBN 1-13663-757-5 , p. 198
  8. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly (6th legislative period)
  9. ^ Cabinet Mauroy I
  10. ^ Cabinet Mauroy II
  11. ^ The Politics of Telecommunications: National Institutions, Convergence, and Change in Britain and France , 1999, ISBN 0-19828-074-2 , pp. 153, 188
  12. ^ Eli Noam: Telecommunications in Europe , 1992, ISBN 0-19536-136-9 , p. 306
  13. ↑ Claudia Rose. The state as customer and sponsor: A German-French comparison , 2013, ISBN 3-66309-630-0 , p. 181
  14. ^ France goes for Fibers , in: New Scientist, November 11, 1982, p. 340
  15. ↑ Chris Forrester (editor): High Above: The untold story of Astra, Europe's leading satellite company , 2011, ISBN 3-64212-009-1 , p. 53
  16. ^ Eli Noam: Television in Europe , 1992, ISBN 0-19536-154-7 , p. VII
  17. ↑ Lars Qvortrup: The Social Significance of Telematics: An essay on the information society , 1984, ISBN 9-02728-000-2 , p. 169 f.
  18. ^ Cabinet of Mauroy III
  19. ^ Robert R. Bruce, Jeffrey P. Cunard, Mark D. Director: From Telecommunications to Electronic Services: A Global Spectrum of Definitions, Boundary Lines, and Structures , 2014, ISBN 1-48316-135-8 , p. 532
  20. ^ Fabius cabinet
  21. ^ Wayne Sandholtz: High-Tech Europe: The Politics of International Cooperation , 1992, ISBN 0-52007-313-4 , p. 221
  22. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly (8th legislative period)
  23. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly (9th legislative period)
  24. ^ Cresson's cabinet
  25. ↑ Helga Bories-Sawala: French in the "Reich employment": deportation, forced labor, everyday life: experiences and memories of prisoners of war and civilian workers , 1996, ISBN 3-63150-032-7 , p. 646
  26. ^ Bérégovoy cabinet
  27. ↑ Eric Conan, Henry Rousso: Vichy: An Ever-present Past. Contemporary French culture and society , 1998, ISBN 0-87451-795-8 , pp. 24, 46 f.
  28. ↑ Sharif Gemie, Laure Humbert, Fiona Reid: Refugees and Relief Workers in an Era of Total War 1936-48: Outcast Europe , 2012 ISBN 1-44110-244-2 f, p 92nd
  29. ^ Rebecca Clifford: Commemorating the Holocaust: The Dilemmas of Remembrance in France and Italy , 2013, ISBN 0-19166-928-8 , p. 113
  30. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the National Assembly (10th legislative period)
  31. ↑ Entry  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the homepage of the National Assembly (11th legislative period)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.assemblee-nationale.fr  
personal data
SURNAME Mexandeau, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mexandeau, Louis Jean (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French politician, member of the National Assembly
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Wanquetin , Pas-de-Calais department