Max Gallo

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Max Gallo (2009)

Max Louis Jules Gallo (born January 7, 1932 in Nice , † July 18, 2017 in Vaison-la-Romaine ) was a French writer , historian and politician .

Live and act

Max Gallo was born in Nice in 1932 to a modest family of Italian descent. His father was an electrician and had served in the Navy during World War I. According to his own statements, his mother read to him as a child from Dante's Divine Comedy . He initially trained as a machinist (Mécanicien-ajusteur) , which he completed at the age of 16, then a mathematical-technical baccalaureate . He then worked as a technician for the radio diffusion-Télévision Française television station . In addition to work, he studied history. He reached the Agrégation in history on the first attempt . He later became a Doctor of Contemporary History and a Docteur ès lettres .

From 1960 to 1965 Gallo was a high school teacher at a Lycée in Nice, then from 1965 to 1970 assistant (Maître assistant) at the University of Nice and 1970 to 1975 Maître de conférences at Sciences Po in Paris. At Editions Robert Laffont , he directed several series of publications, and from 1971 to 1981 he was a columnist for the weekly L'Express .

Until 1956 Max Gallo was a member of the Parti communiste français . Later he supported the Parti socialiste ; Finally, he joined the civil right, supported Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential candidacy and, after Sarkozy became president in 2007, wrote several speeches, including the one on Lazare Ponticelli , the last French participant in the First World War .

From March 23, 1983 to June 18, 1984 he was State Secretary and government spokesman for the French government under Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy , and from the European elections 1984 to 1994 a member of the European Parliament .

Since May 31, 2007, Gallo was a member of the Académie française , where he held armchair 24 . The previous owner of this seat was Jean-François Revel . In addition to works on history, Gallo published a number of biographies about Louis XIV , Rosa Luxemburg (1993), Charles de Gaulle (1998), Napoléon (2009) as well as a number of novels in which he described the history of France in a colorful and popular way. Gallo's view of history was very traditional. For him it was not so much social upheaval and social structures as great men who made history.

In 2015, Gallo announced that he had Parkinson's disease . She had been diagnosed shortly after his election to the Académie française in 2008; Nevertheless, Gallo published several books a year for many years. Gallo died on July 18, 2017 in Vaison-la-Romaine in the Vaucluse department .

Works (selection from over 100)

  • La nuit des longs couteaux , Robert Laffont, 1971, German first edition The Black Friday of the SA. The destruction of the revolutionary wing of the NSDAP by Hitler's SS in June 1934 , Molden Verlag Vienna, 1972
  • Le cortège des vainqueurs , Robert Laffont, 1972
  • Un pas vers la mer , Robert Laffont, 1973
  • L'oiseau des origines , Robert Laffont, 1974
  • Que sont les siècles pour la mer , Robert Laffont, 1977
  • Les hommes naissent tous le même jour, (Tome 1: Aurore, Tome 2: Crépuscule) , Robert Lafont, 1978
  • Une affaire intime , Robert Laffont, 1979
  • France , Grasset, 1980
  • Un crime très ordinaire , Grasset, 1982
  • La demeure des puissants , Grasset, 1983
  • Le beau rivage , Grasset, 1985
  • Belle époque , Grasset, 1986
  • La route Napoléon , Robert Laffont, 1987
  • Une affaire publique , Robert Laffont, 1989
  • Le regard des femmes , Robert Laffont, 1991
  • Une femme rebelle. Vie et mort de Rosa Luxembourg , Presses de la Renaissance Paris, 1992, German first edition Rosa Luxemburg. A biography , Benziger Verlag, Zurich 1993
  • Les Fanatiques , Fayard, 2006
  • Fier d'être Français , Fayard, 2006

Film adaptations

  • 1982: Boulevard the Murderers (Boulevard des assassins) - based on the novel Une affaire intime
  • 1983: The Cry for Life (Au nom de tous les miens)
  • 2002: Napoleon

Web links

Commons : Max Gallo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Max Gallo, la fin d'une "histoire française" . In: Le Monde . July 21, 2017, p. 16 (online under the title Mort de Max Gallo, académicien et roi du roman historique populaire , July 20, 2017).
  2. ↑ Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French), accessed on July 20, 2017
  3. ^ Paul-François Paoli: Mort de Max Gallo, un historien qui aimait la France. In: lefigaro.fr . July 19, 2017, accessed July 20, 2017 (French).
  4. ↑ Data from the central death register 2017 (text file; 116.9 MByte). In: Fichier des personnes décédées , accessed on May 12, 2019.
  5. ↑ Obituary (French), accessed on August 1, 2017
  6. ↑ The author Max Gallo has died. In: sueddeutsche.de . July 20, 2017. Retrieved July 23, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Gallo, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gallo, Max Louis Jules (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer, historian and politician, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Nice , France
DATE OF DEATH 18th July 2017
Place of death Vaison-la-Romaine