Michel Poniatowski

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Michel Poniatowski (center) during a visit to Tunisia when he was greeted by the President of the Tunisian Republic , Habib Bourguiba (March 1976)

Michel Casimir Poniatowski (born May 16, 1922 in Paris , † February 15, 2002 in Le Rouret , Alpes-Maritimes ) was a French politician of the Groupe des Républicains et Indépendants (RI) and the Union pour la démocratie française (UDF), who was a member of the National Assembly , Minister of State and Minister of the Interior between 1974 and 1977 , a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1989 and a member of the Senate from 1989 to 1995 .

Life

Family background, studies and administrative officer

Coat of arms of the Poniatowski family

Poniatowski came from a noble family from Poland , who first appeared in documents in Lublin (Lubelski) in the Masovian Voivodeship in 1450 and had owned the indigenous family in the Kingdom of Poland since March 4, 1569 and was one of the Polish noble families. His ancestors included Stanislaus II August Poniatowski , who was the last king of Poland between 1764 and 1795 , and Józef Antoni Poniatowski , who became Maréchal d'Empire in 1813 .

Michel Poniatowski himself was the oldest of four children and the only son of Charles Casimir Poniatowski and his wife Marie-Josèphe-Anne-Gabrielle, Comtesse de Caraman-Chimay. He himself attended the Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague and was drafted into military service after its graduation in 1940 during World War II . He last served in the 1st Storm Parachute Battalion (1er bataillon parachutiste de choc) established in 1943 and graduated from the renowned École nationale d'administration (ENA) after the end of the war . After graduation, he joined the Treasury Department in 1948 and worked in administration in French Morocco and between 1956 and 1958 as a financial attaché at the embassy in the USA . In 1958 he served briefly as the cabinet director of Prime Minister Pierre Pflimlin . Thereupon he was between 1959 and 1962 cabinet director of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing , who at that time was State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, and who promoted him in the following period. During Giscard d'Estaing's tenure as Minister of Finance and Economics , he was the Ministry's project manager from 1962 to 1965 and, at the same time, from 1963 to 1967 as the head of the insurance department.

Member of Parliament, Minister of Health and 1974 presidential campaign

On March 12, 1967, Poniatowski was elected for the first time as a member of the National Assembly for the Républicains indépendants (RI) founded by Giscard d'Estaing and represented the interests of the National Assembly during the third to fifth legislative periods of the Fifth Republic until his resignation on May 5, 1973 of the Val-d'Oise department .

Poniatowski was previously appointed Minister for Public Health and Social Security (Ministre de la santé publique et de la sécurité sociale) on April 6, 1973 in the second Messmer cabinet and held this ministerial office in the third Messmer cabinet until May 28, 1974. During this time he also acted as manager of the election campaign of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in the presidential election in France in 1974 , from which this from the second round on May 19, 1974 with 13,396,203 votes (50.81 percent) was narrowly the winner François Mitterrand emerged , which received 12,971,604 votes (49.19 percent).

Minister of State, Minister of the Interior and Broglie Affair

After Giscard d'Estaing took office as President , Poniatowski was appointed Minister of State (Ministre d'État) and Minister of the Interior (Ministre de l'intérieur) to the first Chirac cabinet on May 27, 1974 . He also held the functions of Minister of State and Minister of the Interior in the subsequent Barre cabinet until March 30, 1977. In addition, he was Giscard d'Estaing's successor as President of the Républicains indépendants (RI) and held this position until he was replaced by Jean-Pierre Soisson in 1977.

During his tenure as Minister of the Interior, the Broglie affair occurred, which began on December 24, 1976 with the murder of the MP and former Secretary of State Jean de Broglie , who came from the noble family de Broglie . Over time, the case grew into a scandal affecting business, politics, and a number of obscure businesses. De Broglie was involved in a number of different company activities, but at the time of his assassination he had a debt of 12 million francs . Previously, alongside Giscard d'Estaing and Raymond Marcellin, he was one of the founders and financial supporters of the Républicains indépendants and was murdered by enemies in front of the home of his financial advisor Pierre de Varga at a point when he became a liability. In 1980, the Parti socialiste (PS), with the support of the Parti communiste français (PCF), submitted a motion to the National Assembly that Poniatowski, as Minister of the Interior at the time , should appear before the Court of Cassation and be charged with failure to provide assistance. According to the PS and PCF, as Minister of the Interior, he had failed to help someone he knew was in danger. He then accused the PS and PCF of defamation and stated before the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry that he had no prior knowledge of the impending murder of Jean de Broglie.

After retiring from the government Barre Poniatowski served as Special Envoy of the President with the rank of ambassador and traveled among others, on 27 December 1978 a meeting with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Tehran to sign up for the President in preparation for the Conference of Guadeloupe a picture to make about the situation in Iran . At this conference, which took place from January 4 to January 7, 1979, it was to be decided whether the West would continue to support the Shah, or whether a conversation should be sought with his political opponent Ayatollah Khomeini . In addition to the host Giscard d'Estaing, President Jimmy Carter from the USA, Prime Minister James Callaghan from Great Britain and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt from Germany took part in the conference. No official decisions were taken at the conference. The French President Giscard d'Estaing was instructed to establish contact with Ayatollah Khomeini and to discuss the question of a possible change of government.

Member of the European Parliament and Senator

In the European elections on June 10, 1979 Poniatowski was elected as a candidate of the Union pour la France en Europe to the European Parliament and belonged to this after his re-election for the Union pour la démocratie française (UDF) in the European elections in France on June 17 1984 from July 17, 1979 to July 24, 1989. In the European Parliament he joined the Liberal and Democratic Group and was deputy from March 9, 1982 to July 23, 1984, from December 13, 1985 to April 5, 1987 and most recently from May 15, 1988 to July 24, 1989 Chairman of this group . At the same time, he was chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation between October 30, 1979 and July 23, 1984, and then chairman of the Energy, Research and Technology Committee between July 26, 1984 and July 24, 1989.

After Pierre Salvi's death on January 9, 1989, Poniatowski succeeded him on January 10, 1989 as a member of the Senate and was a member of this until October 1, 1995. While he was a member of the Senate, he became a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Commission des affaires étrangères) on April 12, 1989 , of which he was a member until October 1, 1995. At the same time he was Vice-President of the Parliamentary Delegation to the European Communities and the European Union between June 15, 1990 and October 1, 1995 .

Marriage and offspring

His marriage to Gilberte de Chavagnac had four children, including Ladislas Poniatowski , who was a member of the National Assembly from 1986 to 1998 and has been a member of the Senate since 1998, and Axel Poniatowski , who has been a member of the National Assembly since 2002. His grandson and daughter of his only daughter Isabelle Poniatowski is the model and music producer Caroline de Maigret , whose father Bertrand de Maigret was also a member of the National Assembly between 1978 and 1981, and who is married to the music producer Yarol Poupaud . His cousin is the writer Elena Poniatowska .

Publications

In addition to his political career, Poniatowski also wrote numerous books on political and historical topics. In particular, through numerous publications, he gained a reputation as a specialist for the French statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord and was awarded the Grand Prix Gobert of the Académie française for 1983 for his book Talleyrand et le Directoire: 1796-1800, published in 1982 . His numerous publications include:

  • L'avenir des pays sous-développés , SEFI, Paris, 1954.
  • Histoire de la Russie d'Amérique et de l'Alaska , Horizons de France, Paris, 1958.
  • Talleyrand aux États-Unis, 1794-1796 , Presses de la Cité, Paris, 1967.
  • Les Choix de l'espoir , Grasset, Paris, 1970.
  • Cartes sur table , Fayard, Paris, 1972.
  • Conduire le changement , co-author Alain Duhamel , Fayard, Paris, 1975.
  • L'avenir n'est écrit nulle part , éd. Albin Michel, 1978.
  • Louis-Philippe et Louis XVIII: autour du journal de Louis-Philippe en mars 1815 , Perrin, Paris, 1980.
  • L'Histoire est libre , Albin Michel, Paris, 1982.
  • Talleyrand et le Directoire: 1796-1800 , Perrin, Paris, 1982.
  • Garnerin: le premier parachutiste de l'histoire , Albin Michel, Paris, 1983.
  • Lettre ouverte au Président de la République , Albin Michel, Paris, 1983.
  • L'Europe ou la mort , Albin Michel, Paris, 1984.
  • Le Socialisme à la française , Albin Michel, Paris, 1985.
  • Talleyrand et le Consulat , Perrin, Paris, 1986.
  • Les Technologies nouvelles: la chance de l'homme , Plon, Paris, 1986.
  • Talleyrand et l'ancienne France: 1754-1789 , Perrin, Paris, 1988.
  • Que survive la France , Éditions du Rocher, Monaco / Paris, 1991.
  • La catastrophe socialiste , Éditions du Rocher, Monaco / Paris, 1991.
  • Talleyrand. Les années occultées: 1789-1792 , Perrin, Paris, 1995.
  • Mémoires , Plon (Paris) / Le Rocher (Monaco), 1997.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Deuxième Gouvernement Pierre Messmer
  2. ^ Troisième Gouvernement Pierre Messmer
  3. ↑ Jacques Chirac Governorate
  4. ^ Prime Minister Raymond Barre
  5. ↑ FRANCE: Dark business. A big name, a historic restaurant, millions of francs and murder: the de Broglie criminal case turned into a judicial scandal. . In: Der Spiegel from January 10, 1977
  6. ↑ Giscard d'Estaing: Rotten society. Unsolved murders, scandals, secret indiscretions with public discretion and unparalleled patronage of office - this is what the “Giscard State” looks like. . In: Der Spiegel from May 19, 1980
  7. ↑ FRANCE: Dark affair. Who ordered the murder of Prince Jean de Broglie? And why? France is experiencing its most confusing murder trial. . In: Der Spiegel from November 30, 1981
personal data
SURNAME Poniatowski, Michel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Poniatowski, Michel Casimir (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French politician, member of the National Assembly and Senator
DATE OF BIRTH May 16, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 2002
Place of death Le Rouret , Alpes-Maritimes department