Paul Torche

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Paul Torche

Paul Torche (born June 6, 1912 in Cheiry , † December 29, 1990 in Friborg ) was a Swiss politician (conservative) and State Councilor of the canton of Friborg .

Live and act

Torche, Catholic by nature, comes from Cheiry. His parents were Henri Olivier Torche, farmer, and Cécile Angélique nee. Bondallaz. In 1942 he married Yvonne Berchier.

After attending the St. Michael College , which he completed with the Latin-Greek Matura , he studied law at the University of Freiburg . In 1934/35 he was the central president of the Swiss Student Union . After a short stay in a law firm in Baden , he completed an internship with lawyer Maxime Quartenoud . From 1937 he worked as a notary in Estavayer-le-Lac and at the same time as an agent of the Crédit agricole in Domdidier . As a member of the Young Conservatives, he was asked to run for the Grand Council in 1936 , but had not yet reached the required age of 25. As a result, he had to wait until 1941 to be elected to the Grand Council as the first member of the Grand Council as a member of the Broye District on a joint conservative and free-thinking list . In 1946 he was its vice-president for the first time. Paul Torche was secretary of the expropriation commission for Lake Gruyère (1943).

Elected to the State Council in 1946 , he became the head of the Health and Police Directorate. He launched the hospital reform, which led to the construction of a new canton hospital, and was responsible for the law on combating tuberculosis (1951). He found himself with a labor dispute between Dr. François Ody (1896–1957), chief surgeon at the Cantonal Hospital since 1940, and confronted three of his colleagues. The conflict was widely spread in the press, especially in the Neuchâtel L'Express . In an assessment on April 24, 1951 , a group of doctors led by Federal Judge Louis Couchepin came to the conclusion that cooperation between Ody and his colleagues was impossible. The chief doctor had to give up his job. At a meeting in a restaurant, Ody criticized the State Council in the presence of Torche, who did not want to discuss the affair in such a place and in front of third parties. Ody started his allegations a second time and sat down at the health director's table, who then slapped him on the face .

In the police sector, under Torche, a law on cinema and theater (1949) and a law on restaurants, dancing and the beverage trade (1955) were passed.

When Maxime Quartenoud died in 1956, Paul Torche was in charge of home affairs, agriculture, industry and trade with great success until his resignation. He passed the Soil Improvement Act and Commercial Jurisdiction. With his activity he promoted the economic development of the canton, but also drew attention to the psychological problems when farmers were sent to the factory. The Freiburg economy was not yet able to absorb the birth surplus. During Torche's reign, there was a decline in the primary sector, employing a quarter of the labor force, while the secondary sector rose to more than 40% (1960 census). Paul Torche, a man of action, was considered the author of the Freiburg economic miracle. He changed the image of Friborg, which had previously isolated itself, and presented a modern canton on press trips organized by the Geneva-based René-Henri Wüst's information and public relations center. His colleague Pierre Dreyer explained that he was an excellent ambassador for Freiburg . Thanks to his policy, around 65 companies settled in the canton.

In 1958, as doyen of the government, he had to respond to a question from Louis Barras about the attitude of the French-speaking Swiss press after the suicide of Léonce Duruz, chief bailiff in the Broye district , who had been elected cantonal judge against Pierre Barras, the official candidate of the Conservative People's Party. In 1951, 1955 and 1960 he was President of the State Council. After Quartenoud's death, he was considered the strong man in the government.

Bad health and disappointed with the prevailing climate in the State Council - a colleague even accused him of working too much - he resigned on March 31, 1966. In his opinion, Pierre Dreyer would be his ideal successor, but the Conservative-Christian-Social People's Party decided to present the Gruyère Jacques Morard , who was defeated by the liberal Paul Genoud . For Torche, Morard should have waited until the general election in late 1966.

From 1947 to 1954 he was a member of the National Council (he reported in particular on the Agriculture Act in 1951) and from 1954 to 1972 the Council of States . He successfully supported a motion to build a Trans-Helvetic Canal (waterway between Lake Geneva and Basel , from the Rhone to the Rhine ), which however remained a project. In 1969/70 Torche was President of the Council of States. Without being a candidate, he received 85 votes in the Federal Council election , in which Roger Bonvin won the fifth ballot with 142 votes in 1962. «His main concern was cantonal in nature,» says François Gross . Nevertheless, thanks to his origins in the Broye, he saw beyond the canton's borders. He established confidential relationships with another broyard, the free-spirited Vaudois State Councilor and Federal Parliamentarian Jean-Pierre Pradervand .

Paul Torche was through his meetings with Pope Pius XII. , General Guisan and Robert Schuman . The latter, a leading politician of the MRP in France and one of the fathers of Europe, came to Friborg in 1949 following an official visit to Bern. At the request of Hans Oprecht , President of the Swiss Social Democratic Party , he campaigned for the Belgian socialist Henri de Man, convicted of collaboration, to stay in Greng near Murten . He was also acquainted with Monsignor Bela Varga, President of the Hungarian National Assembly and the Small Farmers Party, who was driven out by the Communists and lived for a time in the Hauterive Monastery before settling in the United States.

Paul Torche was president of the organizing committee for the 100th anniversary of the Conservative government in 1956. He actively led the movement for women's suffrage, which campaigned for the revision of the relevant constitutional article (vote 1969). From 1966 to 1968 he was president of the cantonal Conservative-Christian-Social People's Party (today CVP), but was unable to prevent the Christian-social wing from splitting off. He was an honorary doctor and honorary senator of the university and also headed the university association.

After his resignation, he continued to be interested in public life and sat on several boards of directors (President of Nestlé , Swiss Bank Corporation ). In the army he was captain and commander of a company of the Freiburg Regiment 7 during active service and most recently held the rank of major .

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