The loss of life of the socialist Henri Nallet, who was, below François Mitterrand, Keeper of the Seals and twice Minister of Agriculture | EUROtoday

His very British look struggled to hide a restrained ardour. Former minister of François Mitterrand, Henri Nallet, who had quite a few well being issues, died on May 29 in Paris on the age of 85. “It is a great statesman that France is losing today”, greeted Jean-Marc Ayrault, president of the Jean Jaurès Foundation of which Nallet was honorary president. Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to his “flame of commitment to justice”.

Son of an optician, ex-communist resistance fighter, radical then Poujadiste, Henri Nallet was born on January 6, 1939 in Bergerac (Dordogne) the place he accomplished his secondary research. In class 5^e, on the age of 13, he joined the Young Christian Students (JEC). Having turn into secretary common of the JEC, this younger Protestant got here up towards the Catholic hierarchy who rejected his social dedication and resigned in 1964. Graduated from the Bordeaux Institute of Political Studies in 1961, holding a level in public legislation in 1962 and the next research diploma in political science in 1966, with a thesis on agriculture, he joined the FNSEA in 1965 as undertaking supervisor to Michel Debatisse, common secretary of the agricultural union. But deemed too left-wing, he slammed the door in 1970.

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Founder of the Center for Research and Revolutionary Intervention which ready May 68, Henri Nallet, lawyer, tried his hand at journalism till 1973 on the Protestant weekly Reform. It was there that he met Pierre Joxe who satisfied him to affix François Mitterrand's marketing campaign group in 1980. At the identical time, he married a journalist from Growth of younger nations, Thérèse Leconte, with whom he had a son, Vincent.

Henri Nallet pursued a profession as a researcher in agriculture, a ardour which led him in 1970 to the National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) the place he directed the division of rural sociology till 1981 and strongly impressed the peasant left. In July 1981, he grew to become technical advisor to Mitterrand in control of agricultural points. In April 1985, he succeeded Michel Rocard as Minister of Agriculture within the authorities of Laurent Fabius. He pacified relations with the FNSEA, negotiated the enlargement of the European Economic Community to Spain and Portugal and supported the Restos du coeur.

A technician gifted with political sense, Henri Nallet, all the time extraordinarily courteous, provides off a picture of stiffness, even coldness, however the man is humorous and heat in personal. In April 1986, he was elected deputy for Yonne, re-elected in 1988 then in 1997. It was solely in 1986 that he joined the Socialist Party, which he requested to not “remake the world by catalog but impose the asceticism of a real government program”. Committed to native motion and public service, he was mayor of Tonnerre (Yonne) from March 1989 to June 1998.

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