25 Facts About Gilbert Grandval

Gilbert Grandval remained in post for a decade, although the nature of the job evolved and there were changes of title in 1948 and again in 1952 when he became, formally, the French ambassador to the Saarland.

Gilbert Grandval was the alias Hirsch-Ollendorff used from approximately 1943 while working with the Resistance.

Subsequently, he was authorized permanently to substitute the Grandval name for the family name with which he had been born, both on his own account and on behalf of his father.

Yves Gilbert Grandval Edmond Hirsch was born at his parents' home along the Rue La Boetie in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.

Gilbert Grandval's mother, born Jeanne Ollendorff, was the daughter of Paul Ollendorff, another book dealer, and a publisher who numbered Guy de Maupassant among his authors.

Gilbert Grandval Hirsch-Ollendorff was born into a Jewish family but with the post-revolutionary French state deeply committed to "Laicite" he seems to have been able to carry his religion lightly: at some stage he converted to Roman Catholicism.

Nevertheless, as Gilbert Grandval grew up the family was part of the city's Jewish intellectual community: their social circle included the family of Leon Blum, who traced his family origins back to Alsace.

Gilbert Grandval received his schooling at the prestigious Lycee Condorcet, close to the family home.

Gilbert Grandval rose quickly through management ranks to become a sales director with the fertilizers division, based in Lyon.

Gilbert Grandval was almost immediately conscripted into the Air Force and given the rank of " lieutenant".

Gilbert Grandval was deployed in a reconnaissance squadron and later as a fighter pilot in northern France.

Gilbert Grandval Hirsch-Ollendorff was demobilised and on 17 August 1940 returned to work in the chemicals business.

Gilbert Grandval became a member of the Ceux de la Resistance group in 1941.

Gilbert Grandval was released two days later "for lack of evidence against him".

Gilbert Grandval was seen to be acquiring enhanced leadership potential, with an intimate appreciation of the organisation's structures and hierarchies.

Gilbert Grandval gained valuable experience, reconfiguring the local resistance era "Forces of the Interior" into appropriate postwar military structures, and rebuilding the underpinnings of civil society which during the occupation years had fallen into the hands of now discredited Vichy officials.

Gilbert Grandval was not interested in such a political-diplomatic posting, however.

Gilbert Grandval took some persuading, and indeed sought the advice of his old family friend Leon Blum.

Gilbert Grandval expected to remain in post for a few months, at most half a year.

Gilbert Grandval invited the Paris government to entrust him with doing what was necessary, and that is what happened.

Gilbert Grandval's title changed again on 25 January 1952, when the French government appointed Grandval as Ambassador and Head of the French Diplomatic Mission to the Saar Protectorate.

On 25 January 1955 the West German ambassador in Paris, Herbert Blankenhorn agreed with Georges Henri Soutou, France's deputy cabinet head, that Gilbert Grandval's Saarland posting should end three months before the Saar Statute referendum, scheduled for October of that year.

However, Gilbert Grandval resigned after fifty-five days over "differences" with the policies of the French government led by Edgar Faure.

Gilbert Grandval remained in this post for more than two years: the period was one of significant transition.

Gilbert Grandval saw himself as a "lefwing Gaullist" and was a founder member of a new political party, the Democratic Labour Union which was a slightly incongruous alternative to the mainstream Gaullist Union for the New Republic party.