Georges Pompidou

The family of Georges Pompidou was of very modest origins: he was the grandson of farmers of modest means in Cantal on both his father's and his mother's side. His parents were teachers. Thus his case is often cited as a typical example of social mobility in the Third Republic, thanks to public schooling.[1]

Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou was born on 5 July 1911[2] in the commune of Montboudif, in the department of Cantal in central France.[3] After his khâgne at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he befriended future Senegalese poet and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor, he attended the École Normale Supérieure, from which he graduated 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 youngest daughter Anne had Down syndrome).

Jacques Chirac served as an aide to Prime Minister Pompidou and recalled:

The man gave the appearance of being secretive, wily, a little cunning – which he was, to a degree. However, it was primarily his intelligence, culture, and competence that conferred indisputable authority on him and commanded respect.... I remember his untamed eyebrows, his penetrating, very kindly gaze, his perceptive smile, full of humour and mischievousness, his voice with its wonderful low, warm, gravelly tone, and a figure that was both powerful and elegant. Naturally reserved, little given to emotional outbursts, Pompidou did not forge very close ties with his colleagues.[4]

Pompidou (upper right) with US Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show

He served as prime minister of France under de Gaulle after Michel Debré resigned, from 14 April 1962 to 10 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 in a vote of no-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).

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, overseeing a tremendous victory of the Gaullist Party. He 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.

In social policy, Pompidou's tenure as prime minister witnessed the establishment of the National Employment Fund in 1963 to counter the negative effects on employment caused by industrial restructuring.[5]

After the failure of the 1969 constitutional referendum, de Gaulle resigned and Pompidou was elected president of France.[6] 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 (58%–42%).[7] Though a Gaullist, Pompidou was more pragmatic than de Gaulle, notably facilitating the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Community on 1 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, he replaced Chaban-Delmas with Pierre Messmer, a more conservative Gaullist. While the left-wing opposition organised itself and proposed a Common Programme before the 1973 legislative election, Pompidou widened his presidential majority by including Centrist pro-European parties. In addition, he paid special attention to regional and local needs in order to strengthen his political party, the UDR (Union des Democrates pour la Ve République), which he made a central and lasting force in the Gaullist movement.[8]

The grave of Georges and Claude Pompidou in Orvilliers

While still in office, Pompidou died on 2 April 1974, at 9 PM, while in his apartment,[11] from Waldenström macroglobulinemia. His body was buried on 4 April, in the churchyard of Orvilliers, where he had bought an old baker's house which he turned into a weekend home.[12] The official memorial service for him was held at Notre-Dame de Paris with 3000 dignitaries in attendance (including 28 heads of state and representatives from 82 countries). April 6 was declared a national day of mourning and entertainment and cultural events were canceled, theatres and schools closed.[13][14]

Attendees included:

A controversy arose surrounding the secrecy kept over Pompidou's illness, and the political class "agreed" that future presidents of the Republic will have to provide reports on the state of their health. However, President François Mitterrand, who had pledged during his 1981 campaign to publish regular health bulletins, would also conceal, after his accession to power, the severity of the cancer from which he was suffering.[17]

Pompidou's wife Claude Pompidou would outlive him by more than thirty years.[18] The couple had one (adopted) son, Alain Pompidou, who went on to serve as president of the European Patent Office.[18]

France withdrew from the Eurovision Song Contest 1974, which took place just four days after Pompidou's death, as a mark of respect.[19]

• 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

• Legion of Honour:
  • Chevalier de la Legion of Honour: (France) (1948);
  • Officier de la Legion of Honour: (France) (1957);
  • Grand-croix de la Legion of Honour: 1969, grand-maître de l'ordre (France) (1969-1974, as president of the republic);
• Grand-croix de l'Ordre national du Mérite (France);[20]
• Grand Cross of Order of St. Olav (Norway) (1962);
• Grand Cordon of Order of Leopold (Belgium).[21]
• Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (United Kingdom) (1972)
• Knight Grand Cross with Collar of Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (1973).[22]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Georges Pompidou.

• Centre Georges Pompidou
• Lycée Français International Georges Pompidou - A French school in Dubai and Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
• France's neocolonialism

• Bell, David et al. eds. Biographical Dictionary of French Political Leaders Since 1870 (1990) pp 346–349.
• Bell, David. Presidential Power in Fifth Republic France (2000) pp 105–26.
• Berstein, Serge; Jean-Pierre Rioux (2000). The Pompidou Years, 1969-1974. Cambridge UP. ISBN 9780521580618.
• Demossier, Marion, et al., eds. The Routledge Handbook of French Politics and Culture (Routledge, 2019).
• Hibbs, Douglas A.; Vasilatos, Nicholas (1981). "Economics and Politics in France: Economic Performance and Mass Political Support for Presidents Pompidou and Giscard d'Estaing" (PDF). European Journal of Political Research. 9#2 (2): 133–145. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.1981.tb00595.x. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 June 2015. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
• Kolodziej, Edward A. (1974). French international policy under de Gaulle and Pompidou: the politics of grandeur. Cornell Univ Press.
• Lauber, Volkmar (1983). The political economy of France: from Pompidou to Mitterrand.
• Trachtenberg, Marc (2011). "The French Factor in US Foreign Policy during the Nixon-Pompidou Period, 1969–1974" (PDF). Journal of Cold War Studies. 13 (1): 4–59. doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00073. S2CID 57559412.