See also: Garden (homonymy)
Jean Garden , alias the pope Joan , is a politician French born with Bernay (the Eure) in 1904 and died with Paris in 1976.
It belonged to the group of the new Ordre in the Années 1930. During the Second world war, he is principal private secretary of Pierre Laval.
Pre-war period
Resulting from a middle-class, provincial and catholic medium knowing Marcel Proust well, of tendency monarchist, this young person and Rastignac brilliance “go up” to Paris to integrate Science-Po into it, in addition to the Faculty of letters and right. It takes part in the intellectual boiling of the Non-conformistes of the Thirties within New the Ordre movement (without bond with that of the Seventies) with, inter alia, the historian Robert Aron, the journalist Alexandre Marc, the philosopher Denis de Rougemont, the writer Daniel-Rops. Jean Jardin thus starts to constitute a network of powerful relations which will serve all its life to him and whose compartmentalized activation will be its raison d'être.In 1937, it joined, like negro, the cabinet of Raoul Dautry, first managing director of the SNCF, recently created.
Under the Occupation
In January 1941, he is operations manager with the cabinet of Yves Bouthillier, Minister for Finance of Vichy and in April 1942, he is named with the cabinet of Pierre Laval. Jean Jardin returns then during the most intense time of his life: Master of the secret funds, it multiplies his network, subsidizes resistant discreetly and very quickly, it establishes contacts with the French of London.
In February 1943, it is named principal private secretary of the chief of the government, Pierre Laval, and makes become the future Prime Minister Maurice Couve of Murville to Algeria under cover of a mission to Madrid; this one will become police chief with finances of the French Committee of National Release in Algiers. As a senior official of Vichy, it receives the Gestapo at his place, while placing Robert Aron secretly there, continued because it was Jewish.
The extremists of the Collaboration start to be wary of him and it is the subject of an assassination attempt. Pierre Laval names then it operations manager with the embassy in Bern, to contact the Americans. He receives many people there from France; he also benefits from it to support the exit of Paul Morand of Romania where he was ambassador of the mode of Vichy.
Post-war period
Jean Jardin remains as exiled in Switzerland during some time. The anticommunism of the Cold war makes return to Paris much of Vichyist repented and gives it in saddle. The weakness of the Fourth Republic is extremely favorable to this type of 3eminence grise.
Jean Jardin admirably knew All-Paris of the policy and the businesses; he connected, proposed his services, suggested discrete councils and opinions with all those which counted. Thus, during 10 years, between 1958 and 1968, every Friday mornings, it will be received with the Quay of Orsay, by Maurice Couve of Murville, Foreign Minister of the de Gaulle General. Besides this exception, its role under the Fifth Republic did not have the same importance as under the preceding mode.
Man of the shade par excellence, it would have perhaps left there against his liking, in 1978 when the business Bousquet burst.
Pierre Assouline devoted to him a Biographie under the title a 3eminence grise. Jean Garden (1904-1976) , Paris, Balland, 1986.
He is the father of Pascal Jardin, essay writer, novelist and dialogist and the grandfather of the Romancier Alexandre Jardin.
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