Georges Frêche

Georges Frêche is a Politician French, born the July 9th 1938 with Puylaurens (Tarn). Excluded from the Socialist party in 2007, he is currently president of the district council of Languedoc-Roussillon, president of the community of agglomeration of Montpellier and member of the municipal council of Montpellier. He was Député of the Herault and Maire of Montpellier (1977 - 2004).

Specialist in the Roman law, he was professor of Histoire Droit to the Université Montpellier 1, now reprocessed.

Biography

Political training

At its exit of HEC, it joined the Faculty of Law of Paris and the Institut of Geography. It militates then against the Guerre of Algeria, position very minority with the Faculty of Law.

The February 13rd 1962, it belongs to a group which tries to occupy the Faculty of Law of Paris. This group passed to tobacco in the main courtyard of faculty through the students of the “Corpo of right”, in favor of OAS. Collected by the police force of Ve district of Paris, many these students of left, among which Georges Frêche, find himself a few hours lasting with the police station of Ve.

Its engagement hard anticolonialist until the end of the War of Algeria and is prolonged by its entry with the Fédération of the Circles Marxist-Leninists until in 1965. It is only once named with Montpellier in 1969, nauseated by certain methods of the Maoists and by the Soviet intervention at the time of the Printemps of Prague in Czechoslovakia, which it engages with SFIO.

Political career

In March 1973, Georges Frêche is candidate (PS) for the first time at the legislative elections in Montpellier (Herault). It at that time tries to approach the mediums of old French Algeria. Thus, he claims that the candidate of the young whole National front, André Toise, former officer of OAS, invites to vote for him by anti-gaullisme in 1973, and opens his list for the local elections of 1977 with a former officer of the Foreign legion, condemned for membership to the OAS. He is victorious of these two elections.

According to Jacques Molénat, this attitude of Frêche with the nostalgic ones of French Algeria falls under a comprehensive policy of clientelism towards the repatriates in a city where the community " Pied-noir " is one of most important of France, in particular since construction ex-nihilo of the district of Paillade, initially intended to accommodate the flow of the new arrivals.

The taking into account of this pied-noir vote would be one of the elements of its successive victories since 1973. The charges of clientelism are also based on the subsidies with a myriad of associations related to pied-noir, the construction of a House of the repatriates, recruitment in municipal employment, an access facilitated to the residences, the creation of a museum of France in Algeria, etc In 1982, it puts in Bern all the flags of the city when Claude Cheysson, Minister for the Foreign relations (foreign affairs) of François Mitterrand, comes to be inclined with Algiers in front of the tomb of the " hero of FLN ".

Mayor of Montpellier

With for objective an urban development of Montpellier, it engages this one in a series of great work. During its successive mandates, the combined effect of municipal management and demographic attraction of Montpellier make pass the city of the 25e to the 8th national rank.

Great projects
One can in particular quote the creation of a new district at the end of the Années 1970: Antigone, by the architect Ricardo Bofill, but also of that of the Millenium, an economic zone, at the end of the Years 1980, which comes to prolong the urban development towards the east or with the downtown area the construction of Corum (center of congress and opera).

The Années 1990 see building the Olympic swimming pool, within the network of the media libraries the “power station” Emile-Zola , the first line of Tramway, establishment of UFR of the economic scenes and AES on the Campus of Richter.

During Years 2000, the great projects continue: ludic and commercial zone Odysseum, district New Saint-Roch , second tram line, building site of the Museum Fabre, new town hall.

It thus printed its mark on the city as a builder. These construction schedules were very expensive but, on the long run, they were unquestionably affirmed like positive and even essential. Its adversaries criticize the autocratic and megalomaniac character of these decisions; its ambitious achievements for Montpellier did not decrease. All this corresponds to the promotional currency of the Années 1980: “Montpellier, the exceptionally gifted one”.

A difficult intercommunality
Within the District of Montpellier, tensions appear with the mayor of Lattes, Michel Vaillat, on the commune of which two polluting installations of the agglomeration montpelliéraine are established: discharge of Thôt and the Purification plant of Céreirède. The relations with Lattes calm down with the election of Cyril Meunier in 2001 and the commitment to close the discharge in 2006. However, they worsen with Christian Jeanjean, UMP mayor of Palavas-the-Floods and its local and national political ambitions.

Following its election in 2004 with the presidency of the area Languedoc-Roussillon, it cannot any more be a mayor of Montpellier due to Cumul of the mandates and indicates Helene Mandroux to succeed to him. There remains president of the community of agglomeration of Montpellier to widened competences (law Chevènement).

It devotes, for the agglomeration, its energy with the projects of second tram line and the park of activities of Odysseum. It aims also to increase the community by gaining other communes to be able to reach the threshold of population of 500.000 inhabitants allowing the transformation into Urban community. The first widening at the conclusion of the transformation of the district into community of agglomeration causes to make come Montpellier to the sea. It is also a manner of compensating for the departure of several communes of which Palavas-the-Floods. To arrive there, two possibilities: to go to the east towards Lunel, or the west with Sète and Frontignan. This second solution will be launched officially and in 2005, it tried a fusion between the communities of agglomeration of Montpellier and of Sète and the community of communes of Mèze but this project does not lead for lack of unanimity.

From the point of view of the intercommunality, the assessment of Georges Frêche is paradoxical. If he manages to equip Montpellier with a Communauté of agglomeration powerful and active by transformation of the urban district created in 1965 he does not manage to calm the dissatisfaction with common the neighborhoods (to read the dedicated section of the article Communauté of agglomeration Montpellier Agglomération). The speeches of rejection of the agglomeration in common the peripherals insist on the hegemonic personality of Georges Frêche. Thus the agglomeration became more powerful thanks to widened competences (culture, economic development) but it is cut down by its littoral by the departure of Palavas-the-Floods and the refusal of Mauguio like the Large-Mound, common members of the Communauté of communes of the Country of Gold, to integrate the community.

Languedoc-Roussillon

At the regional level, its political career is marked by a conflict opposition with Jacques Blanc (UDF, then UMP), president of the district council of the Languedoc-Roussillon. Frêche fails becoming president de Région in 1998 after alliance between the regional advisers of right-hand side and those of the National front at the time of the election of the president of the district council, Jacques Blanc. However, in March 2004, its list of union of the left arrives first to the second turn of the regional election in Languedoc-Roussillon. To avoid the office plurality of the mandates, it leaves the town hall of Montpellier to one of its close relations, Helene Mandroux-Colas.

Since his accession with the presidency of the district council, Georges Frêche gets busy to convince the opinion and the regional elected officials of his capacity to manage the area. However, of the conflicts quickly burst with the regional opposition of right-hand side around cancellations of subsidies and the will of Mr. Frêche to add the name of the historical area Septimanie in the name of the area. In spite of the popular opposition, it launches a posting campaign in favor of the renaming in Septimanie at a cost of 2  000  000 of euros according to the official figures, while the opposition quantifies the countryside to 12 million euros.

For this new regional policy, Georges Frêche decided to increase the taxes to be able to raise a budget of 765 million euros (against 554 million in 2004) to finance a restoration of the regional trains, to maintain or build colleges, to consolidate the dams of the Rhone which showed their weaknesses during the winter 2003, to help with the financing of the social and student housing, and to help the elderly and handicapped. In April 2005, the president of the UMP Nicolas Sarkozy decreed “the national palm of the increase in the taxes” with Georges Frêche. And this last of the affubler of the nickname of " large Mamamouchi with the heels compensés". About the increase in the local tax system, he answers: “… isn't this the BABA of the policy? Two years of unpopularity, two years of calm, two years favorable with flowers and small birds, and you are re-elected: all that is of an disconcerting ease. ”

The first decisions voted by the district council are: free books for all the high-school pupils and the apprentices, revalorization of the allowances of the trainees, launching of a policy bound for youth: forums Septimania 15-25 years in the big cities of the area, gate Internet, District council of Youth.

April 14th, 2005, following the popular rejection of the term Septimanie to rename the area, it transforms the project into trade mark " Septimanie, the claw of the soleil" , and a large publicity campaign launches to promote this name and the products of the area. In September 2005, he announces definitively to give up renaming the area, 95% of the population being opposite there.

Georges Frêche and the Socialist party

Member of the Socialist party since his creation, Georges Frêche often was in opposition with the leaders of his party, the Socialist party (PS). It forever be minister, according to him because he was against the financings of the party by Urba and the bonds between François Mitterrand and Rene Bousquet. The disagreement is actually older since as of the Congrès of Épinay in 1971, Mitterrand had drawn aside it. Its step could be taxed with opportunism because he had been Maoist of 1962 to 1967 and goes on a journey in China during this period. In a book published when Mitterrand was still president, bound France (ED. P. Belfond, 1990), Frêche had denounced this dernier.membre vigorously national office and national council of the PS (until 2006);

In 2002, it was one of only to announce during the presidential electoral campaign to the candidate Lionel Jospin that his program was not comprehensible by the voters and that it would have owed asresser with the workmen, word that Jospin did not employ. The following year, left its book the elephants are mistaken enormously, critical sour elephants (leader) of the Socialist party.

According to its detractors (from which some with the PS), during his almost thirty years of management of the PS of Herault, Georges Frêche endeavoured to eliminate all those which could make him shade and to keep only those which remain to him subjected, which lets forecast difficult days for the party when it disappears.

Its physical health is not very good, it underwent some heart failures followed by heavy operations which moved away it from the political scene starting from the end of the year 2004 until May 2005.

It is on the request of Pascale Boistard, member of the national office, that it is suspended for two years of the socialist party to have qualified the harkis submen. The January 27th 2007, the National Commission of the conflicts of the Socialist party announces the exclusion of the president of the area Languedoc-Roussillon for its remarks considered to be “noncompatible with the values of equality and respect of the human rights” which assert this party

Key political dates

Controversies

Georges Frêche leaves seldom indifferent between his concrete achievements, his way of making sometimes outrageous decisions and his remarks. Sometimes called the “Le Pen of left”, it has, according to Jacques Molénat

According to the media, it would have treated the Harkis submen. According to him, these remarks were directed only against the members of an association of Harkis being returned to a ceremony organized by the mayor UMP of Palavas. The speech was recorded by a journalist of the Herault of the Day, at the sides of Jack Lang which affirms “not to have heard” these remarks. This polemic intervenes in a double context of debate at the national level on the French Loi of February 23rd, 2005 (whose Georges Frêche took defense) and at the local level the partial cantonal election of the sixth canton in which the “repatriated” electorate and, with less title harki, is determining.

Georges Frêche presented his excuses thereafter while this skid is condemned in its own majority (majority with which it for a long time maintains a tended relation), by the Greens (Maryse Arditi) and Jean-Claude Gayssot (PCF) which resigns of its vice-presidency of the district council. Jean-Claude Gayssot will withdraw then his resignation following the explanations provided by Mr. Frêche.

February 28th, 2006, François Holland, first secretary of the Socialist party suspends it national authorities of the party while waiting for its passage before the National Commission of the conflicts.

Put in examination in March 2006 for insults in racial matter, it is released on September 13rd, 2007 in call; Court of Appeal estimating that “the remarks were not addressed in any manner to the community harkie but to two individuals”.

In July 2007, the Agrif carries felt sorry for against Georges Frêche for “provocation anti-semite and anti-Lebanese”, pronounced on June 24th, 2007: he had in particular stated to have made of Montpellier “a released zone of Eretz-Israel”.

In November 2005, during the inauguration of a mosque of Montpellier, he had wondered whether it were not " the cops who, like in May 1968, (put) fire with the bagnoles". the Minister of Interior Department of then Nicolas Sarkozy continued to have emitted this assumption, and seizes the Minister for justice so that it institutes the proceedings. He was released in first authority by the magistrates' court of Montpellier. But the parquet floor having appealed, and required in first authority a fine of 5000 euros, was finally condemned on September 11th, 2007 by the Court of Appeal of Montpellier to a fine of 1500 euros, this one having retained a slandering against the police force. Its lawyer, Me Gauer, implied that its customer could provide himself in cassation and go even until front the European Court of the Human rights. He declared: " you will see that it gagnera".

Georges Frêche is invited in the emission of Laurent Ruquier, One is not lying of November 16th, 2007, in order to promote his new book, It is necessary to scuttle the PS . The images concerning the harkis are repeated, and the two chroniclers of Ruquier, Eric Naulleau and Eric Zemmour, do not hesitate to speak about media handling, the images showing clearly that Frêche addressed, with virulence, with two men in particular, and not at a community. In front of the minister Rowed Yade, Frêche is explained on the question of the blacks in team of France, ensuring that he wanted “to draw the attention to the fact that it is possible other to be left there”, and insistent on the formations which proposes what it calls the colleges of the second chance. According to him, it was victim of a media lynching of the media of left which isolated a sentence in its speech; idea taken up by Zemmour, journalist with the Barber. He says on this subject: “I am an old model of the time of Mitterrand. I need several sentences to be expressed, and in the company in which one lives, it is necessary to be synthetic, all to say in a sentence or two. ”

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