France: death of former minister Paul Quilès, a figure of the Mitterrand years
Former socialist minister Paul Quilès in July 2006. AFP - JOEL SAGET
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Minister of the French Republic several times in the 1980s and 1990s, notably of the Interior and Defense, the socialist Paul Quilès died, we learned this Tuesday, September 21, 2021, at the age of 79 years. .
A prominent figure of the “mitterrandie” in power.
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Piercing blue eyes and a rare smile, this strict-looking Polytechnician had been at the center of a lively controversy in 1981 after clumsy remarks, exploited by the right, on the need to "
make heads fall
", once the left coming to power.
Mayor of Cordes-sur-Ciel (Tarn) from 1995 to 2020, elected in the first round during four consecutive terms, he had been deputy on several occasions, in Paris then in the Tarn, where Jean Jaurès was born.
Indignation of the Right
Son of an officer and a teacher, Paul Quilès was born on January 27, 1942 in Saint-Denis-du-Sig, in French Algeria.
After Polytechnique, he worked until 1978 as an engineer in the energy sector with the oil company Shell.
At the same time, this left Catholic, former Christian student youth (JEC), entered the PS in 1972 and militated in the Mitterrandist current.
His political rise took off in 1981, when he became the director of the presidential campaign for François Mitterrand who, in May, acceded to the Élysée.
In October, during the Socialist Congress in Valence, he launched, referring to the senior administration: “
We must not be content to say evasively, like Robespierre (...) in 1794
: heads will fall.
You have to say which ones and say it quickly!
The right is indignant against the one it will nickname from then on "Robespaul", argument widely used against him in 1983 when he will seek, in vain, the town hall of Paris against Jacques Chirac.
Rocard's support
Mr. Quilès, who was a moderate politician all his life, later explained that he actually wanted to "
avoid what might have looked like a witch hunt
."
But he admitted to having made the “
mistake
” of pronouncing a name, Robespierre, with “a
strong negative charge
”.
He later made public letters from right-wing politicians, such as Gérard Longuet or Patrick Devedjian, acknowledging their misinterpretation.
In 1993, the former Prime Minister Michel Rocard also estimated, in the review
L'Histoire
, that Paul Quilès was made to say the opposite of what he wanted to say, accusing in passing the television of "
transforming the debates of ideas in crisis, for the needs of the spectacular
”.
Successor of Charles Hernu
Appointed Minister of Housing in 1983, Mr. Quilès was promoted to the head of an extended Ministry of Tourism in 1984. From September 1985 to March 1986, he succeeded Charles Hernu at the Ministry of Defense, forced to resign following the case of the "Rainbow Warrior", name of the Greenpeace ship sabotaged by the French secret services in New Zealand.
He was later found Minister of Posts and Space in the Rocard government (1988-91).
He was then again appointed to Housing (and Transport), before obtaining the Interior portfolio, in 1992-93.
In 1997, he was elected chairman of the National Assembly's Defense Committee and, the following year, he chaired the parliamentary information mission on Rwanda.
This father of three children was the president of the organization "Initiatives for nuclear disarmament", aimed at "
building a more secure world
" He had written, alone or in collaboration, three books on the issue:
Nuclear, a French lie
,
Stop the bomb!
and
The Nuclear Illusion
.
(
With AFP
)
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