Pierre Guillaumat

This article describes the French politician Pierre Guillaumat, for the ship of the same name see Pierre Guillaumat (ship)

Pierre Lucien Jean Guillaumat (born August 5, 1909 in La Flèche , Département Sarthe , † August 28, 1991 in Villeurbanne ) was a French politician and manager of the energy industry. He was the first defense minister of the 5th Republic and founder of the Elf Aquitaine company .

Life

The son of the officer Adolphe Guillaumat and Louise, née Bibent, worked as an engineer for the Corps des mines after completing his training. From 1928 he was in the École polytechique , first in Toulouse , then in Paris. From 1934 to 1939 he was head of the mining administration in French Indochina , and from 1939 to 1943 that of French Tunisia . During the Second World War he worked there for the French secret service BCRA . In February 1946 he married Monique Villemain, with whom he had three children.

Guillaumat was appointed in August 1944 by the Minister of Industry, Charles de Gaulles, to the direction of the “Department of Fuels” ( direction des carburants ). He was from 1945 to 1950 and again from 1955 to 1959 director of the state "Administration for Petroleum Research" (Bureau des recherches de pétrole) and from 1951 to 1958 Director General of the Commissioner's Office for Atomic Energy . Because of his functions, he played a key role in the French nuclear weapons program .

Guillaumat was one of the main actors in Gaullism . From June 1, 1958 to January 8, 1959, he was Minister of Defense under President Charles de Gaulle and Prime Minister Michel Debré and from November 23, 1960 to February 20, 1961 Minister of Education .

From 1962, Guillaumat held leading positions in French companies in the energy research and industry. In the 1960s he pushed the merger of energy suppliers into the state-owned oil company Elf Aquitaine, which he headed from 1967 until his retirement in August 1977. He was also president of the state energy company Électricité de France (EDF) from 1965 to 1966 .

After his retirement he became involved in the fight against cancer and cancer research by taking over the presidency of the National League Against Cancer ( Ligue nationale contre le cancer ), founded in 1918 .

He was buried in the old cemetery of Neuilly-sur-Seine .

honors and awards

Guillamat was the bearer of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor . The tanker Pierre Guillamat , launched in 1977 , is named after him.

Web links

• Pierre Guillaumat , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 40/1969 of September 22, 1969, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Raymond H. Lévy: Pierre Guillaumat, 1909–1991. (PDF; 5.6 MB) In: La Jaune et la Rouge. Association des anciens élèves et diplômés de l'École polytechnique, May 1993, pp. 46–50 , accessed on March 2, 2019 (French). 
2. ^ Neuilly-sur-Seine (92): cimetière ancien. Cimetières de France et d'ailleurs, accessed October 19, 2016 .