Jacques Chaban-Delmas

Jacques Chaban-Delmas was born Jacques Michel Pierre Delmas in Paris. He studied at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, before attending the École Libre des Sciences Politiques ("Sciences Po"). In the resistance underground, his final nom de guerre was Chaban; after World War II, he formally changed his name to Chaban-Delmas. As a general of brigade in the resistance, he took part in the Parisian insurrection of August 1944, with general de Gaulle. He was the youngest French general since François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, during the First French Empire.

A member of the Radical Party, he finally joined the Gaullist Rally of the French People (RPF), which opposed the Fourth Republic's governments. In 1947, he became mayor of Bordeaux, which was for 48 years his electoral fief. As a member of the National Assembly, he sat with the RPF.

In 1953, when the RPF group split (and Charles de Gaulle supposedly retired), Chaban-Delmas became head of the Union of Republicans for Social Action and president of the National Centre of Social Republicans party. He "tied up" with centre-left parties and joined Pierre Mendès-France's cabinet one year later as Minister of Public Works. He took part in the centre-left coalition Republican Front, which won the 1956 legislative election. He was France's Defence Minister in 1957–1958. His governmental participation during the Fourth Republic inspired the distrust of de Gaulle and some Gaullists.

Following Gen. de Gaulle's return to power in 1958, Chaban-Delmas agreed to the advent of the French Fifth Republic and the new Constitution. He took part in the foundation of the Union for the New Republic (UNR) and was elected, against de Gaulle's will, chairman of the National Assembly. He kept this function until the end of de Gaulle's presidency in 1969. Unlike some Gaullists, for instance, Jacques Soustelle, he supported de Gaulle's policy to end the Algerian War of Independence. During the 1959 UNR Congress, he was the first politician to evoke a "reserved presidential domain," composed chiefly of defence and diplomacy. This interpretation of the Constitution of 1958 has survived.

In 1969, when Georges Pompidou acceded to the presidency, he chose Chaban-Delmas, who had concluded that the May 68 crisis was the consequence of a strained and conflicted society, as prime minister. Chaban-Delmas tried to promote what he called "a new society", based on dialogue between the different social forces in French society. Amongst other reforms, government authority over the mass media was relaxed, while legislation was passed on social welfare coverage for the poor and elderly which consolidated France's profile as a welfare state. In addition, regular increases were made to the minimum wage which prevented greater wage disparities. A new legal aid scheme was introduced, along with a number of new social welfare benefits. ...

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