Michel Toussaint

Michel Alfred Edmond Joseph Toussaint (born November 26, 1922 in Namur ; † March 23, 2007 ibid) was a Belgian politician . He was a member of the Senate and the Walloon Parliament as well as State Secretary and Minister in various Belgian governments . On December 2, 1983, he was awarded the honorary title of Minister of State .

Life

family

Michel Toussaint was a son of the insurance inspector Robert Toussaint and his wife Suzanne Horman. In 1948 he married Monic Materne in Jambes .

Lawyer, Senator and State Secretary

Michel Toussaint studied law at the University of Liège , which he graduated with a doctorate in law in 1947. He was then director of the Materne company and director of the Banque de Bruxelles between 1947 and 1952 , before setting up as a lawyer in his native Namur in 1954 . Although he had already participated in the Walloon National Congress of the Parti libéral (PL) from October 20 to 21, 1945, his actual political career did not begin until the late 1950s. Between 1957 and 1965 he served as President of the Liberal Federation of Namur and Vice President of the PL. In the elections in October 1958 he was elected a member of the Namur Municipal Council and was a member of that council for almost thirty years until 1988. He was also President of the Entente libérale wallonne from 1958 to 1961 and then from 1961 to 1965 President of the Entente libérale wallonne of the Parti de la liberté et du progrès (PLP).

In January 1963, Toussaint was appointed a member of the Senate and represented the province of Namur in it . In the 1965 elections he was re-elected to the PLP as a member of the Senate and was a member of the Senate for the districts of Namur , Dinant and Philippeville for almost 20 years until 1984. At the same time he was first alderman of Namur between January 1, 1965 and March 19, 1966 . He then took over in the government of Vanden Boeynant I from March 19, 1966 to February 7, 1968, the office of State Secretary in the Ministry of National Education. In the elections of 1968 he achieved impressive personal electoral success when, with 28,369 personal votes, he achieved the best election result in the province of Namur since the end of the Second World War. Within the PLP of PVV - Group chaired by Omer Vanaudenhove he championed in the Senate in particular for the interests of Wallonia. In 1970, under the leadership of Pierre Descamps and Gérard Delruelle, he cast his vote to secure the two-thirds majority required to amend the constitution, which led to the establishment of the Flemish, Walloon and German communities . After the consequent implementation of the Loi Terwagne for the decentralization of the economy, he became a member of the Regional Economic Council of Wallonia (Conseil économique régional de Wallonie) in October 1971 , to which he belonged for the Liberal Party until 1975. At the same time he was a member of the Council of Culture (Conseil Culturel) of the French Community of Belgium from 1971 to 1984 .

Vice President of the Senate and Minister

In 1971 Michel Toussaint became Vice President of the Senate and held this position until 1972. In 1972 he helped found the Walloon PLP and strongly supported the presidency of Émile-Edgard Jeunehomme and then of André Damseaux , who was President of the PLPW between 1973 and 1979. In the government Leburton I and Government II Leburton he held between 26 January 1973 to 19 January 1974, the Office of the Minister of National Education.

He was then in the Tindemans I government and Tindemans II government from April 25, 1974 to December 8, 1976 Minister for Foreign Trade. In the Senate, he voted for the law on provisional regionalization introduced by François Perin and Robert Vandekerckhove and, after the passage of this law, was a member of the Provisional Wallon Regional Council (Conseil régional wallon provisoire) from March 1974 to March 1977 . After the resignation of Minister François Perin, Toussaint was in the government of Tindemans II and Tindemans III between December 8, 1976 and April 18, 1977 Minister for Institutional Reform and, as such, was a member of the Ministerial Committee for Walloon Affairs, whose President Alfred Califice was.

Walloon Regional Council, Minister of State and Member of the European Parliament

As a senator, he voted in August 1980 for another institutional constitutional amendment, which led to the further strengthening of communities and the introduction of parliaments in the respective language communities. He then became a member of the Wallonia Regional Council (Conseil régional wallon) on October 15, 1980 . At the meeting of November 6, 1980 he became one of the secretaries of the office of the Walloon Regional Council and held this position until October 6, 1981. Subsequently, between December 23, 1981 and July 24, 1984 he was first vice-president of the Walloon Regional Council. On October 19, 1982 he was finally also President of the Conseil culturel de la Communauté française , the cultural council of the French Community of Belgium, and held this post until October 15, 1984. In this role, he campaigned for a rapid implementation of administrative reforms of the communities and Regions. On December 2, 1983, he was awarded the honorary title of Minister of State .

In the European elections on June 17, 1984 , Michel Toussaint was elected as the top candidate of the Parti réformateur libéral (PRL) to be a member of the second European Parliament . As the eighth best candidate, he achieved a personal election result of 41,311 votes, while the PRL received a total of 540,610 votes. He was then a member of the European Parliament from October 1984 to 1989.

Web links

• Entry in Connaître la Wallonie

Individual evidence

1. ^ Toussaint, Michel Alfred Edmond Joseph. In: Who's who in Belgium and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Intercontinental Book & Publishing Co., Les Éditions Biographiques, New York 1962.
2. ^ Government Leburton I and II in De Belgische regeringen - Les Gouvernements de la Belgique
3. ^ Government of Tindemans I in De Belgische regeringen - Les Gouvernements de la Belgique
4. ^ Government of Tindemans II in De Belgische regeringen - Les Gouvernements de la Belgique