Marcel Rudloff

Marcel Rudloff (born March 15, 1923 in Strasbourg ; † March 23, 1996 ibid) was a French lawyer and politician ( MRP then UDF - CDS ). He was a member of the French Senate from 1977 to 1992, President of the Regional Council of Alsace from 1980 to 1996 and Mayor of Strasbourg from 1983 to 1989 . From 1992 until his death he was a member of the French Constitutional Court ( Conseil constitutionnel ) .

biography

After graduating from high school and the occupation of Alsace by the German Wehrmacht, he left his Alsatian homeland in 1942 in order not to be drafted into the Reich Labor Service . He continued his law studies at the Strasbourg law faculty, which had moved to Clermont-Ferrand . At that time he was elected President of the Alsatian Law Students Union. He also became involved in Catholic dominated student movements . He passed his license in 1944 and received the Certificat d'aptitude à la profession d'avocat (CAPA). From March 1945 to January 1946 he served in an infantry regiment and in the central translation service of the army in Paris.

After the liberation of Alsace, he returned to Strasbourg, where he was admitted to the bar in 1948. He was also elected President of the Strasbourg Bar Association in 1950. In 1952 he became known nationally when he won the vice-presidency of the National Union of Young Lawyers (Union nationale des jeunes avocats - UNJA). In 1971 he finally became President of the Strasbourg Bar Association.

politics

In 1955 he joined the Christian-Democratic Mouvement républicain populaire (MRP) and founded a regional parents' and pupil association, the APEPA (Association de Parents d'élèves de l'Enseignement Public en Alsace) within Alsatian schools. He remained a Christian Democrat throughout his life. After the dissolution of the MRP, he joined the successor party Center démocratie et progrès (CDP) in 1968 , which was merged into the Center des démocrates sociaux (CDS) in 1976 , which in turn belonged to the bourgeois party alliance Union pour la démocratie française (UDF) from 1978 .

After he was still unsuccessful in the local elections in 1959, Rudloff moved in 1965 over the list of then mayor Pierre Pflimlin (MRP) elected to the local council of Strasbourg. In 1971 he became Deputy Mayor of Strasbourg with responsibility for social affairs, youth and religions and remained so for twelve years. When Pflimlin announced his resignation in 1982, Rudloff was considered a possible successor and was shortly thereafter chosen as a candidate for the bourgeois parties UDF and Rassemblement pour la République . In 1983 he was elected mayor with 54.6% of the vote in the first ballot. In one person, he was also the president of community association Communauté urbaine de Strasbourg (CUS), belonged to the Strasbourg and surrounding communities. He tried to introduce a metro project in Strasbourg , which led to heated controversy. In the mayoral election in 1989 he was defeated by the socialist Catherine Trautmann (who wanted to build a tram instead of the metro) in the second ballot with 36.3 to 42.7 percent.

In the parliamentary elections in 1968, Rudloff applied for a seat in the National Assembly as a candidate for the Christian Democratic CDP , but failed against the Gaullist MP René Radius. In the Senate election in the same year he was a substitute candidate for Senator Michel Kauffmann . After his retirement, Rudloff was elected Senator of the Bas-Rhin department in 1977 and re - elected in 1986. He sat on the Judiciary Committee and became its secretary in 1989. He resigned the Senate mandate in 1992.

Rudloff also played a role in Alsatian regional policy. As a representative of the canton Strasbourg-4 , Rudloff was elected to the General Council of the Bas-Rhin department in 1976 , to which he belonged until 1988. In 1980 he was elected President of the Regional Council of Alsace, at that time still a purely representative office. However, his powers in this position were significantly strengthened in 1982 by the decentralization laws. Since then he has also headed the region's executive branch. He was re-elected in the regional council's first direct election in 1986 and 1992, and held the post until his death.

Monument to Rudloff in Strasbourg

Because of his recognized legal competence, he was appointed to the French constitutional court, the Conseil Constitutionnel , in 1992 by the President of the Senate Alain Poher . He also belonged to this until the end of his life.

literature

• Marcel Rudloff: Souvenir Pour Demain (memories), La Nuée Bleue, 1996.

Web links

• Association les amis de Marcel Rudloff (French)
• Biography and photos (French)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} RUDLOFF Marcel, Ancien sénateur du Bas-Rhin. Anciens sénateurs Vème République, accessed on January 26, 2019.