Jean-Claude Gaudin
 Jean-Claude Gaudin    (politician) | ||||||||
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| Born | 1939-10-08 Marseille, France | |||||||
| Nationality | French | |||||||
| Member of | Knights of Malta, Le Cercle | |||||||
| Party | National Centre of Independents and Peasants, Independent Republicans, Republican Party, Union for French Democracy, Union for a Popular Movement, The Republicans | |||||||
Mayor of Marseille for 25 years, Knight of Malta, Le Cercle...
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Jean-Claude Gaudin (born 1939) is a French politician who was Mayor of Marseille for 25 years and leader of the UMP group in the French Senate since 2011.
He was a member of the National Assembly of France from Bouches-du-Rhône from 1978 to 1989 and has been a member of the French Senate from 1989 to 1995 and again from 1998. From 1995 to 1997, he served as Minister of Territorial Development in Alain Juppé's Second Cabinet.
He was Vice-President of the Senate from 1998 to 2011; as Vice-President of UMP 2002–2007 and as one of several Vice-Presidents for UMP 2013–2014.
Yann Piat Murder allegation
In 1997 Jean-Claude Gaudin took legal action over accusations in a book that he and two senior politicians had ordered the murder of Yann Piat. The pair are not named in the book, but details about them make it clear who is being referred to. Jean-Claude Gaudin and François Leotard openly denounced their implication in the affair. The book, by two journalists, cites a senior former spook as saying the two politicians ordered Piat's murder on February 25, 1994 because she knew too much about alleged sales of military land to mafia-linked businessmen. The court concluded that the journalists "were not able to establish the truth of the facts and the seriousness of the investigation they claim to have led." Rougeot had refused to disclose the name of his source, identified only as an officer in military intelligence. Jean-Claude Gaudin sued the authors of "Yann Piat, Assassins at the Heart of Power" for $1.6 million and the judge ordered the authors, Jean-Michel Verne and Andre Rougeot, to pay Gaudin about $32,000 each. Their publisher, Flammarion, was ordered to pay Gaudin about $50,000 but Verne said he stood by his book. "I have the conviction that politicians were involved in the murder of Yann Piat," he said. "The conviction supported by evidence I gathered since the book came out. "I tell those people implicated that they will not escape their destiny."[1]
Career
He is a Knight of Malta and attended Le Cercle.
