19 Facts About Jacques Chaban-Delmas

Jacques Chaban-Delmas served as Prime Minister under Georges Pompidou from 1969 to 1972.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas was the Mayor of Bordeaux from 1947 to 1995 and a deputy for the Gironde departement between 1946 and 1997.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas was born Jacques Michel Pierre Delmas in Paris.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas studied at the Lycee Lakanal in Sceaux, before attending the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas was the youngest French general since Francois Severin Marceau-Desgraviers, during the First French Empire.

In 1953, when the RPF group split, Jacques Chaban-Delmas became head of the Union of Republicans for Social Action and president of the National Centre of Social Republicans party.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas "tied up" with centre-left parties and joined Pierre Mendes-France's cabinet one year later as Minister of Public Works.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas took part in the centre-left coalition Republican Front, which won the 1956 legislative election.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas took part in the foundation of the Union for the New Republic and was elected, against de Gaulle's will, chairman of the National Assembly.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas kept this function until the end of de Gaulle's presidency in 1969.

In 1969, when Georges Pompidou acceded to the presidency, he chose Jacques Chaban-Delmas, who had concluded that the May 68 crisis was the consequence of a strained and conflicted society, as prime minister.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas tried to promote what he called "a new society", based on dialogue between the different social forces in French society.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas was suspected of wanting to "tie up" again with the centre-left.

The satirical paper Le Canard Enchaine accused him of breaking the law through tax evasion and in 1972, Jacques Chaban-Delmas canvassed for a vote of confidence in the Assembly.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas did obtain this, but the President still managed to force his resignation.

Two years later, following the death in office of President Pompidou, Jacques Chaban-Delmas ran for the presidency himself.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas was supported by the "lords of gaullism", but 43 personalities close to the late president, led by Jacques Chirac, published the Call of the 43 in favour of the candidacy of Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas stood in the Gaullist Party and, in spite of Chirac's leadership, returned to the chair of the National Assembly.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas retired in 1997, towards the end of his thirteenth term of member of the National Assembly and two years after the end of his eighth term as Mayor of Bordeaux.