Georges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou (5 July 1911 – 2 April 1974) was President of France from 1969 until his death in 1974.
Biography
He was born in the commune of Montboudif, in the department of Cantal in central France where his father was a schoolteacher. After his khâgne at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he befriended Senegalese poet and statesman Léopold Sedar Senghor, he graduated from the École Normale Supérieure with a degree of Agrégation in literature. He then taught literature at a lycée. During World War II he was an army lieutenant. He won the Croix de Guerre. He first met the then leader of the Free French, Charles de Gaulle in 1944, joining his personal staff. He proved adept at interpreting de Gaulle's ideas and communicating these to a wider audience. Between 1944 and 1949 he held various posts under de Gaul, including maître des requêtes (master of requests, or petitions) at France's highest administrative court.
In 1953 he was hired by Guy de Rothschild to work at de Rothschild Frères where he rose to high rank, despite lacking relevant professional qulaifications. In 1956, he was appointed the bank's general manager, a position he held until 1962. In 1959, after de Gaul's return to power, he again became his personal assistant, playing a significant part in drafting what became the consititution of the Fifth Republic. However, following de Gaul's election as President in January 1959, Pompidou resumed his role at the bank. In 1961, his services were again called upon by de Gaule, this time to negotiate in secret with the Algerian freedom-fighters, which led to a cease fire.
As Prime Minister
Although Pompidou had been a close confidante and colleague of the President, these roles had not exposed him to the public-at-large. However, this changed in April 1962, when de Gaul appointed him as his Prime Minister, even though he was not a member of the National Assembly. His incumbency was short lived, as he resigned in October after losing a vote of confidence in the Assembly. By December he was again Prime Minister, re-appointed by de Gaule and this time he remained in office until 1966. Two further terms in office followed, 1966-67 and 67-68, longer than anyone else had held the office in recent history. De Gaul dismissed him in 1968. To this day is the longest serving French prime minister under the Fifth Republic. 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.
The Presidency
However, during the May 1968 events, disagreements arose between Pompidou and de Gaulle. Pompidou did not understand why the President had informed him of his sudden decision to depart from the Presidency before his resignation in April, 1969. Their relationship, until then very good, would be strained from then on. Pompidou led and won the 1968 legislative campaign, 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 confirming her husband's status as a cuckold. Pompidou was certain that de Gaulle's inner circle was responsible for this smear.
After the failure of the 1969 referendum that would have reduced the Senate into an advisory body, de Gaulle resigned and Pompidou was elected president of France, defeating in the second round by a wide margin the Centrist chairman of the Senate and Acting President Alain Poher. Though a Gaullist, Pompidou was more pragmatic than de Gaulle, notably allowing the United Kingdom to join the European Community in 1973. He embarked an industrialisation plan and initiated the Arianespace project. 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. He continued many of de Gaul's policies, however. For example, he maintained cordial relations with the Arab world and with former French colonies in Africa. Relations with West Germany were somewhat strained but trans-Atlantic relations with the United States improved. De Gaule had withdrawn from NATO in 1966 and generally pursued foreign relation's policies that distanced France from the US, using the United Nations Security Council to maintain an independent French polity within world affairs. Under his Presidency, the French economy was strong.
While the left-wing opposition organized itself in proposing a Common Programme before the 1973 legislative election, he widened his "presidential majority" in including the Centerist pro-European parties. During a visit to the USA in 1970, he attrcated demonstrations by American Jews who disliked his pro-Aran policies. The Group to Combat Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Drugs was established in 1971 as an intergovernmental body at Pompidou's suggestion.
While still in office, Pompidou unexpectedly died from Waldenström macroglobulinemia in 1974.
Pompidou had one foster son, Alain Pompidou, later president of the European Patent Office.
Writings by Georges Pompidou
Pompidou, Georges, "Anthologie de la Poésie Française", Livre de Poche/Hachette, 1961. OCLC: 254130. Retrieved 14 June 2007
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Alexandre, Philippe. The Duel: De Gaulle and Pompidou. Boston, MT: Houghton Mifflin, 1972 ISBN 9780395136409
- Berstein, Serge, and Jean-Pierre Rioux. The Pompidou Years, 1969-1974. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 ISBN 9780521580618
- Kolodziej, Edward A. French International Policy Under De Gaulle and Pompidou: The Politics of Grandeur. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974 ISBN 9780801408298
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