I. From son of Cantal region to teacher at Henri IV in Paris.
II. Meeting with General de Gaulle and the after-war years.
III. The beginnings of the V Republic.
IV. In Matignon (14 April 1962-10 July 1968).
V. At the Elysée (15 June 1968-4 April 1974).

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I. From son of Cantal region to teacher at Henri IV in Paris.

The son of two teachers, the grandson of farmers, Georges Pompidou was born on the 5 July 1911 in Monboudif, a village in the Cantal region. He did his primary and secondary schooling in Albi. After the baccalaureat he prepared the entrance exam for the Ecole normale supérieure (Paris) first of all in Toulouse and then at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He went to the Ecole normale supérieure in 1931. His student years provided him with the opportunity to get to know Parisian society and cultural life, to found deep friendships like the one he enjoyed with Léopold Sédar Senghor and to have his first contact with politics with the Ligue d'action universitaire républicaine et socialiste .

He graduated first in his year in agrégation de Lettres in 1934 and was a graduate of the Ecole libre des Sciences politiques. He did his national service in Clermont-Ferrand as an officer in the reserve forces. After marrying, he taught at the Lycée Saint-Charles in Marseilles for three years before being appointed to the Lycée Henri IV in Paris. He was called up at the beginning of the war and sent to the Loraine region with the 141 st alpine infantry regiment. He returned to the Lycée Henri IV in 1940 where he taught first year preparatory classes in humanities for entrance to the Ecole normale supérieure and preparatory classes for the Ecole Nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer.

1 - Georges Pompidou, Pour rétablir une vérité, Paris , Flammarion, 1982,
P. 11-19.
2 - Georges Pompidou, op. cit., P. 19-28.

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II. Meeting with General de Gaulle and the after-war years.

From September 1944 his friendship with René Brouillet whom he had met during his preparatory classes enabled him to join the private office of General de Gaulle, the then president of the provisional government. He was responsible for questions of home affairs and education. On de Gaulle's departure in January 1946 he was appointed deputy to Henri Ingrand, General Commissioner for tourism. In the same year he also became maître des requêtes at the Conseil d'Etat (Council of State).

Without really being a member of Rassemblement du Peuple Français , founded in 1947, he participated in the adventure of this party and remained close to gaullist circles by taking an active role in the Comité national d'études whose president was Gaston Palewski. It was also at this time that he was entrusted with the post of general secretary of the Anne de Gaulle Foundation. During this period Georges Pompidou was part of the restricted circle of those close to General de Gaulle. This enabled him to become Head of the General's private office from April 1948 to 1953.

In 1953 he joined the Bank Rothschild. He rapidly became general director and director of numerous companies. This was an opportunity for him to take part in the economic life of the country, to increase his range of skills and to develop a wider network of connections. During this time of intense activity he also managed to writ, three presentations of classiques on Racine , Taine and Malraux .

3 - Georges Pompidou, op. cit., P. 31-49.
4 - Georges Pompidou, op. cit., P. 49-90 and P. 119-146.

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III. The beginnings of the V Republic.

1958 was the year in which General de Gaulle returned to power and Georges Pompidou to the world of politics. In this troubled context dominated by the Algerian question the last president of the Council of the IV Republic called on him to head his private office from June 1958 to January 1959. He thus played a decisive role working alongside the General, accompanying the work on drafting the Constitution and encouraging economic and monetary reforms.

With General de Gaulle elected president, Georges Pompidou returned to the business world for a time, going back to the Bank Rothschild. A member of the Conseil constitutionnel ( Constitutional Council) he also took advantage of this period to draft Anthologie de la poésie française. He kept in contact with General de Gaulle however, and in February 1961 he accepted a secret mission to facilitate negotiations with the Algerian F.L.N.


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IV. In Matignon (14 April 1962-10 July 1968).

After the approval of the Evian Agreements by referendum in April 1962, General de Gaulle appointed Georges Pompidou Prime minister in place of Michel Debré. It was, thus, certainly a man of experience who arrived in Matignon on 14 April, but one who was little known to the general public.

1962 was marked by the reform of the election of the president of the republic. The choice of direct universal suffrage and above all the use of a referendum to have this constitutional modification approved led to a vote of no-confidence and to the downfall of the first Pompidou government. General de Gaulle reappointed him at once as he did following his election in the presidentials of 1965. Georges Pompidou closely followed the preparations for the general election of 1967 being involved in both the choice of candidates and in the campaign. The results were not those the majority had been expecting, however, as they only secured a short lead. The Prime minister was elected deputy for Cantal for the first time.

In international politics the years 1962 to 1968 were guided by the principle of the de Gaulle style of greatness and independence of France, and on the home front they were marked by a real economic boom enabling important structural reforms. Georges Pompidou played a personal and highly active role in the development of the French economy in all fields.

The 1968 crisis undermined the Republic. From Matignon, Georges Pompidou managed the crisis on a day to day basis, counted on the measures taken to calm down the situation, began the Grenelle negotiations and recommended the dissolution of the National Assembly in order to find a political exit from the crisis. Back in Paris, on the 30 May, after a sudden departure for Baden Baden, General de Gaulle announced the dissolution. The general election of 23 and 30 June were a resouding success for the gaullists.

On July 10 General de Gaulle chose to replace Georges Pompidou by Maurice Couve de Murville . During this “period in the wilderness” the former Prime minister returned to being an ordinary deputy of the Cantal and organised his offices on Boulevard de La Tour-Maubourg , where close associates rallied around him. Georges Pompidou ????????? declaration of Georges Pompidou was interpreted by the French press as announcing his intention, when the time came, to become a candidate for the presidency of the Republic.

The failure of the referendum on the reforms of the Senate and the regions led to the departure of General de Gaulle and to the organising of new presidential elections. Georges Pompidou was elected with 58% of the votes cast against opponent Alain Poher.

5 - Georges Pompidou, op. cit., P. 179-207.
6 - Georges Pompidou, op. cit., P. 2556266 and 269-272.
7 - Georges Pompidou, op. cit., P. 266-269.
8 - Georges Pompidou, op. cit., P. 273-279.


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V. At the Elysée (15 June 1968-4 April 1974).

Georges Pompidou took up office in the Elysée on 15 June 1969. Assuming the gaullist style reading of the Constitution he affirmed the preeminence of the president. He chose as Prime minister the eminent gaullist personality and former president of the Assembly Jacques Chaban-Delmas . The latter remained at the head of the government for three years before resigning in July 1972 following tensions due to his project for a “new society” and power-sharing of the executive. The gaullist, Pierre Messmer, minister of the armed forces under General de Gaulle was asked to take over in Matignon. He was, therefore, Prime minister during the general election of 1973, which was won by the majority against a reorganised left following their adoption of the common programme. He remained in office until 1974. It was at the end of this period that the Head of State attempted to introduce a five-year term of office.

As president of the Republic in 1969, it lay with Georges Pompidou to carry out foreign policy.Taking up the main lines of gaullist style politics, he strove to assure France's independence on the international scene while taking into account the evolution of the world picture (new American policy with the coming to power of Nixon in 1969, German Ostpolitik as from 1969, the increasing power of the USSR, tensions in the Middle East). After the tensions of the past years, he established more confident contacts with the United States. While remaining within the framework of Atlantic solidarity he continued political and economic exchanges with the USSR. The revival of the Construction of Europe also marked his term of office. The conference in The Hague in December 1969 adopted his programme “completion, deepening, widening”. Great Britain was allowed to join the Community together with Eire and Denmark.

Following the international political and economic crisis caused by the Kippur war (October 1973) Georges Pompidou lay even more stress on the European orientation of his policy : in his eyes Europe of the Nine should provide itself with the means to rebalance the Atlantic alliance, contribute to western cohesion opposite the USSR, monitor a GFR henceforth engaged in its Ostpolitik .

On the domestic front Georges Pompidou made his presidency a high point in the industrialisation of the country. Heplaced emphasis on the modernisation of structures while taking care to preserve the general balance of things. Social policy took place at the same time, including important decisions such as monthly salaries for the workers and profit-sharing schemes. This man from a literary background turned statesman was also passionately interested in the cultural field. His attatchment to art and his will to assure its availabilty to the greatest number led him to decide to create a centre of contemporary art in Paris, which today bears his name.