Georges Pompidou

Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou (French: [ʒɔʁʒ pɔ̃pidu]; 5 July 1911 – 2 April 1974) was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.

Biography

He was born in the commune of Montboudif, in the department of Cantal in central France. After his khâgne at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he befriended Senegalese future poet and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor, he graduated from the École Normale Supérieure with a degree of Agrégation in literature.

He first taught literature at the lycée Henri IV in Paris until hired in 1953 by Guy de Rothschild to work at Rothschild. In 1956, he was appointed the bank's general manager, a position he held until 1962. Later, he was hired by Charles de Gaulle to manage the Anne de Gaulle Foundation for Down syndrome (de Gaulle's daughter Anne had Down's Syndrome).

Prime Minister

He served as prime minister under de Gaulle after Michel Debré resigned, from 16 April 1962 to 21 July 1968, and to this day is the longest serving French prime minister under the Fifth Republic. His nomination was controversial because he was not a member of the National Assembly. In October 1962, he was defeated by a vote of non-confidence, but de Gaulle dissolved the National Assembly. The Gaullists won the legislative election and Pompidou was reappointed as Prime Minister. In 1964, he was faced with a miners' strike. He led the 1967 legislative campaign of the Union of Democrats for the Fifth Republic to a narrow victory. Pompidou was widely regarded as being responsible for the peaceful resolution of the student uprising of May 1968. His strategy was to break the coalition of students and workers by negotiating with the trade-unions and employers (Grenelle conference). Until this crisis, he was the Prime Minister of a quiet and prosperous France.

However, during the events of May 1968, disagreements arose between Pompidou and de Gaulle. Pompidou did not understand why the President did not inform him of his departure to Baden-Baden on 29 May. Their relationship, until then very good, would be strained from then on. Pompidou led and won the 1968 legislative campaign, leading to a tremendous victory of the Gaullist Party, then resigned. Nevertheless, in part due to his actions during the May 1968 crisis, he appeared as the natural successor to de Gaulle. Pompidou announced his candidature for the Presidency in January 1969. Some weeks later, his wife's name was mentioned in the Markovic scandal, thus appearing to confirm her husband's status as a cuckold. Pompidou was certain that de Gaulle's inner circle was responsible for this smear.

President

After the failure of the 1969 referendum, de Gaulle resigned and Pompidou was elected president of France.In the general election of 15 June 1969, he defeated the centrist President of the Senate and Acting President Alain Poher by a wide margin (57%–42%).Though a Gaullist, Pompidou was more pragmatic than de Gaulle, notably facilitating the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Community on 1st January 1973. He embarked on an industrialisation plan and initiated the Arianespace project, as well as the TGV project, and furthered the French civilian nuclear programme. He was sceptical about the "New Society" programme of his prime minister, Jacques Chaban-Delmas. In 1972, Chaban-Delmas was replaced by Pierre Messmer, a more conservative Gaullist.

While the left-wing opposition organised itself in proposing a Common Programme before the 1973 legislative election, Pompidou widened out his "presidential majority" by including the Centrist pro-European parties.

Pompidou's time in office was marked by constant efforts to modernise France's capital city. This can be seen through his construction of a modern art museum, the Centre Beaubourg (renamed Centre Pompidou after his death), on the edge of the Marais area of Paris. Other attempts at modernisation included tearing down the open air markets at Les Halles and replacing it with the shopping mall of the same name, building the Montparnasse Tower, and constructing an expressway on the right bank of the Seine.

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  Pompidou with U.S. president Richard Nixon in Reykjavík, 31 May 1973.

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  Pompidou with West German chancellor Willy Brandt in Cologne, 3 July 1972.

Death in office

While still in office, Pompidou died unexpectedly on 2 April 1974, 9 PM, from Waldenström's macroglobulinemia.

Pompidou's wife Claude Pompidou lived more than thirty years past his death. The couple had one son, Alain Pompidou, former president of the European Patent Office.

Works

• Anthologie de la Poésie Française, Livre de Poche/Hachette, 1961
• Le Nœud gordien, éd. Plon, 1974
• Entretiens et discours, deux vol., éd. Plon, 1975
• Pour rétablir une vérité, éd. Flammarion, 1982

Ministries

Second ministry, 28 November 1962 – 8 January 1966

• Georges Pompidou – Prime Minister
• Maurice Couve de Murville – Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Pierre Messmer – Minister of Armies
• Roger Frey – Minister of the Interior
• Valéry Giscard d'Estaing – Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs
• Michel Maurice-Bokanowski – Minister of Industry
• Gilbert Grandval – Minister of Labour
• Jean Foyer – Minister of Justice
• Christian Fouchet – Minister of National Education
• Jean Sainteney – Minister of Veterans and War Victims
• François Missoffe – Minister of Repatriates
• André Malraux – Minister of Cultural Affairs
• Edgard Pisani – Minister of Agriculture
• Louis Jacquinot – Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories
• Marc Jacquet – Minister of Public Works and Transport
• Raymond Marcellin – Minister of Public Health and Population
• Jacques Marette – Minister of Posts and Telecommunications
• Alain Peyrefitte – Minister of Information
• Gaston Palewski – Minister of Scientific Research and Atomic and Space Questions
• Louis Joxe – Minister of Administrative Reform
• Jacques Maziol – Minister of Construction

Changes

• 23 July 1964 – François Missoffe leaves the cabinet. He is not replaced as Minister of Repatriates
• 22 February 1965 – Gaston Palewski leaves the ministry and is not replaced.

Third ministry, 8 January 1966 – 6 April 1967

• Georges Pompidou – Prime Minister
• Maurice Couve de Murville – Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Pierre Messmer – Minister of Armies
• Roger Frey – Minister of the Interior
• Michel Debré – Minister of Economy and Finance
• Raymond Marcellin – Minister of Industry
• Gilbert Grandval – Minister of Labour
• Jean Foyer – Minister of Justice
• Christian Fouchet – Minister of National Education
• Alexandre Sanguinetti – Minister of Veterans and War Victims
• André Malraux – Minister of Cultural Affairs
• Edgar Faure – Minister of Agriculture
• François Missoffe – Minister of Youth and Sports
• Pierre Billotte – Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories
• Edgard Pisani – Minister of Equipment
• Marc Jacquet – Minister of Public Works and Transport
• Raymond Marcellin – Minister of Public Health and Population
• Jacques Marette – Minister of Posts and Telecommunications
• Louis Joxe – Minister of Administrative Reform
• Jean-Marcel Jeanneney – Minister of Social Affairs
• Fifth ministry, 30 May – 10 July 1968
• Georges Pompidou – Prime Minister
• Michel Debré – Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Pierre Messmer – Minister of Armies
• Raymond Marcellin – Minister of the Interior
• Maurice Couve de Murville – Minister of Economy and Finance
• Albin Chalandon – Minister of Industry
• Joseph Fontanet – Minister of Labour, Employment, and Population
• René Capitant – Minister of Justice
• François-Xavier Ortoli – Minister of National Education
• Henri Duvillard – Minister of Veterans and War Victims
• André Malraux – Minister of Cultural Affairs
• Edgar Faure – Minister of Agriculture
• Roland Nungesser – Minister of Youth and Sports
• Joël Le Theule – Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories
• Jean Chamant – Minister of Transport
• Roger Frey – Minister of Relations with Parliament
• Raymond Marcellin – Minister of Public Health and Population
• Robert Galley – Minister of Housing
• André Bettencourt – Minister of Posts and Telecommunications
• Yves Guéna – Minister of Information
• Robert Boulin – Minister of Civil Service
• Christian de la Malène – Minister of Scientific Research and Atomic and Space Questions
• Maurice Schumann – Minister of Social Affairs

Quotations

• "There are three roads to ruin; women, gambling and technicians. The most pleasant is with women, the quickest is with gambling, but the surest is with technicians."