Albin Chalandon
 Albin Chalandon    (banker, politician) | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) | ||||||||||||
| Born | 11 June 1920 Reyrieux, France | |||||||||||
| Died | 29 July 2020 (Age 100) | |||||||||||
| Nationality | French | |||||||||||
| Alma mater | Lycée Condorcet, Sorbonne | |||||||||||
| Parents | Pierre Chalandon | |||||||||||
| Spouse | • Salomé Murat • Catherine Nay | |||||||||||
| Interests | • Alex Türk • Rachida Dati | |||||||||||
| Party | Union for the New Republic, Union of Democrats for the Republic, Rally for the Republic | |||||||||||
French Gaullist politician who attended a Bilderberg in both the 1960s and 70s. French Minister of Justice in the late 1980s. A close collaborator of president Charles de Gaulle, a biography described him as "the man of secret networks, the powers of money, hidden financing, etc."
| ||||||||||||
Albin Chalandon was a French Gaullist politician. He founded a bank with Marcel Dassault of the Dassault family. He was a member of the National Assembly several times and headed various ministries. From 1976 to 1983 he was Director General of the deep-state-connected Elf Aquitaine and from 1986 to 1988 he was French Minister of Justice.[1] He attended 2 Bilderberg meetings, Bilderberg 1963 and Bilderberg 1974. A close collaborator of president Charles de Gaulle, a 2023 biography described him as "the man of secret networks, the powers of money, hidden financing, etc."[2]
Background
Chalandon was the son of the industrialist Pierre Chalandon (1879-1964), who was for a time mayor of his native municipality of Reyrieux in the eastern French region of Bresse. On his mother's side, Albin Chalandon was a grandson of the engineer and journalist Victor Cambon (1852-1927). He attended the Paris Lycée Condorcet and completed a degree in literature and philosophy at the University of Paris (Sorbonne). During World War II, Chalandon resisted German occupation and commanded a company of Maquis, part of the Maquis de Lorris armed Résistance group. In August 1944 he took part in the liberation of Paris.[1]
Career
After the war, Chalandon became an official in the Inspection générale des finances. In this function he belonged to the staff of the provisional head of government Léon Blum from 1946 to 1947 . Chalandon left government service in 1952 and, together with Marcel Dassault, founded Banque commerciale de Paris, which grew to become France's sixth largest credit institution before merging with Banque Vernes in 1972.[1]
Chalandon was one of the supporters of General Charles de Gaulle and joined his Rassemblement du peuple français (RPF) party in 1948. When de Gaulle returned to power in his 1958 parliamentary coup and founded the Fifth Republic, Chalandon joined the new Gaullist party Union pour la Nouvelle République (UNR). He became its treasurer and for a time general secretary. From 1962 to 1967 Chalandon belonged to the Conseil économique, social et environnemental.
He was elected to the French National Assembly in the March 1967 parliamentary elections as a deputy for the newly created department of Hauts-de-Seine (western outskirts of Paris). After the riots in May 1968, he was confirmed as a deputy in the snap elections, a landslide victory for the Gaullist party, which had renamed itself Union pour la defense de la République (UDR). Shortly thereafter, however, he gave up his parliamentary mandate when President de Gaulle appointed him Industry Minister in the Pompidou IV cabinet on May 31, 1968. On July 11, 1968, however, there was a cabinet reshuffle and Chalandon took over, under Prime Minister Maurice Couve de Murvillethe, the Ministry of Equipment and Housing. He retained this office in the Chaban-Delmas cabinet until July 5, 1972. Instead of the large housing estates built in the 1960s, the housing ministry promoted the construction of private homes during his tenure.
After his temporary retirement from government, Chalandon was re-elected to the National Assembly in March 1973, where he sat until 1976. From 1974 to 1975 Chalandon was deputy general secretary of the UDR, which was dissolved the following year and replaced by the neo-Gaullist Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) initiated by Jacques Chirac. In 1976 Chalandon took over the post of General Manager at the state-owned oil company ERAP, known by the brand name Elf Aquitaine, a company with many deep state connections. He led this until 1983. In the general election in March 1986, which the RPR won, Chalandon returned once more to politics.
He won a seat in Parliament for Département Nord and became Minister of Justice in the Chirac II cabinet. He founded anti-terror units and started the privatization of the prison system.[2]
In 1988, Chalandon left the government after the Chaumet case, in which he was accused of illegally holding bank accounts with a jeweler, something which put an end to his political career definitively.[2]
He is the man behind the career of later Minister of Justice Rachida Dati.[2]
Family
Albin Chalandon was married to Salomé Murat, a granddaughter of the writer Marie de Rohan-Chabot and a distant descendant of Napoleon's brother-in-law Joachim Murat, from 1951 to 2016. However, the couple had been separated since 1970 and Chalandon was in a relationship with the journalist Catherine Nay (*1943), whom he also married in 2016. On August 5, 2020, he was buried in his last place of residence, Les Mesnuls.[1]
Events Participated in
| Event | Start | End | Location(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilderberg/1963 | 29 March 1963 | 31 March 1963 | France Cannes Hotel Martinez | The 12th Bilderberg meeting and the second one in France. |
| Bilderberg/1974 | 19 April 1974 | 21 April 1974 | France Hotel Mont d' Arbois Megève | The 23rd Bilderberg, held in France |
