Lucien Poirier

Lucien Poirier ( 1918 - January 10, 2013 ) was a French general and author.

Live and act

At the beginning of the Second World War , Poirier volunteered for the army. For a short time he was at the military school Saint-Cyr and was taken prisoner of war during the German occupation , which he had to serve in the German Reich .

After the war, Poirier was able to return to Paris and joined the Foreign Legion that same year with the rank of captain . After further training, he took part in the Indochina War and also fought in the Algerian War .

After completing his service, he returned to France and from 1968/70 devoted himself to various politico-military topics, on which he gave lectures and published various books. He was particularly concerned with the deterrent theory and is considered the father of the statégie du faible au fort , the French nuclear program. This made him the warning voice of the Force de frappe in the Cold War .

Later he took over from Jean Pavlevski his publishing house Economica, which was founded in 1971, and ran it together with Hervé Couteau-Bégarie . In 1979 Poirier was promoted to general and officially retired. Associated with this was a teaching position at the University of Paris , the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), the École normal supérieure (Paris) and the École nationale d'administration (Strasbourg).

Honors

2001 “Edmond Fréville-Pierre Messmer” award from the Académie des sciences morales et politiques .

Fonts

• La crise des fondements . ISC / Economica, Paris 1994.
• Stratégies nucléaires . Complexe, Brussels 1988
• Essais de stratégie théorique . Institut de stratégie comparée, Paris 1982.
• Des stratégies nucléaires . Hachette, Paris 1977.
• together with François Géré: La réserve et l'attente. L'avenir des armes nucléaires françaises . Economica, Paris 2001.

Web links

• Général Lucien Poirier, homage