Jean Zay

Jean Zay is a French politician born with Orleans in 1904 and died assassinated by militiamans with Molles in 1944.

Biography

Childhood and studies

Jean Zay was born with Orleans the August 6th 1904 from a father Alsatian Juif whose parents had chosen France in 1871, director of the newspaper radical socialist the Progress of Loiret , and a mother Protesting E of the Beauce, teacher. At the elementary school, street of the Carters, it meets Rene Berthelot, future director of the academy of Orleans, which becomes his/her best friend. Then it continues its studies with the Lycée Pothier. It there founds a newspaper high-school pupil, and obtains a price of composition of French literature to the open Competition of 1922.

Professional beginnings

To pay his studies of right, Jean Zay becomes clerk of solicitor and occasional journalist. In April 1925, it founds with some friends (Rene Berthelot, Roger Secrétain) a literary review orléanaise, the Attic which, after 18 numbers, will become the Email . Become lawyer in 1928, it is registered with the Barreau of Orleans from which it becomes soon one of the most brilliant speakers.

(Short) the political career

Jean Zay engages very early in policy. As of its secondary studies, it adheres to Youths laic and republican, then, with its majority (21 years) it is registered with the Radical party. He attends the republican circles, becomes member of the Ligue of the Human rights, person in charge of the Ligue of Teaching and is made initiate with the maconnic Loge Etienne Dolet in 1926. In 1932, at 27 years, it is elected appointed of Loiret (radical socialist). He is then the youngest deputy of France. In 1936, Albert Sarraut names it under-secretary of State to the presidency of the council. A few months later, he is re-elected and becomes, at 32 years, the June 4th 1936, member of the government of the Popular front like Ministre for State education and the Art schools. It remains it under the various governments which follow one another until its resignation of the September 2nd 1939 to join the fighting army. It estimates that it must accompany the effort by its age group.

The war

In spite of its defective health condition, he asks to be integrated in a combat unit. Its courage and its devotion are attested by its military chiefs: “voluntary for the most perilous missions and most delicate”. In 1940, necessary in Bordeaux for a parliamentary session, it must leave her regiment to go there, and receives the order there to embark on the Massilia with Georges Mandel and Pierre Mendès France to join the government which must be folded up in North Africa. Arrived at the Morocco, the ambush appears: the too influential members of Parliament were isolated, not to obstruct the vote of the full powerss to the Pétain Marshal. It is stopped some time after, and is judged for Désertion in the presence of the enemy, on order of the Vichy government.

In June 1940, it is condemned by the military tribunal of Clermont-Ferrand to the deportation and with military degradation, pains necessary at the time of the Affaire Dreyfus and never marked since, for one unlimited duration. It is held initially with the strong Saint Nicolas's Day with Marseilles, then with the prison of Riom. It undergoes a violent press campaign orchestrated by Philippe Henriot, Minister for the Information of the Vichy government, claiming the death sentence of the “Jew Jean Zay”.

Of his prison of Riom, Jean Zay can continue to regularly receive his wife and his two daughters, by of which the junior born after her arrest. He can write and communicate with his friends. There, it makes the choice remain in legality, and refuses an escape which Resistance could have carried out without sorrow, being given its power in the area. It continues to work during its captivity, preparing the reforms which it thinks of being able to implement after the release

The assassination

But the June 20th 1944, from the militiamans of Joseph Darnand come to seek it with the prison, under the pretext of one transfer to the prison of Melun, imply to him then that they are the resistant ones disguised which have the role of making him join the maquis, and assassinate it in a wood with Molles in the Allier. The traitors strip the body, remove its alliance to him, throw the skin in a well and launch some grenades there so that it cannot be identified.

Its body will be found by hunters in 1946 continued, and its assassins.

The rehabilitation on a purely posthumous basis

The July 5th 1945, the Court of Appeal of Riom re-examines the facts complained of to the second lieutenant Jean Zay, notes that from any moment it was not withdrawn from the military authority, and that “the continuations brought against the second lieutenant Jean Zay can be explained only by the desire which had the government to reach a member of Parliament whose political opinions were opposed to him and which it was important to discredit because of the high ranking authority attached to his personality”.

It thus cancels the iniquitous judgment of the October 4th 1940, and Jean Zay is fully rehabilitated on a purely posthumous basis.

Work

As a Minister for State education and the Art schools

The direction of the reforms of Jean Zay

“For Jean Zay, the Republic rests above all on the good citizenship and the intelligence of the citizens, i.e. on their intellectual and moral education. Against the social conservation but also against the revolutionary Utopias, the policy is this movement by which humanity deepens and becomes to some extent worthier of itself. ” (Antoine Prost).

It would not be thinkable to try to explain the action of Jean Zay without replacing it in the context of the political action. As of its majority, indeed, it estimated that “the intellectual cannot not take party in the controversy which each day on the forum draws up the citizens the ones against the others. ” . It is well there, seems it, the starting point of its political commitment.

Jean Zay had arrived at the head of the State education without notice, and it was thus not on the basis of teaching reputation , but well rather on that of its capacities of analysis and weighting, and its virtuous courage, which it was placed in this eminent position.

Because Jean Zay was before a whole politician, rather than a politician, i.e. it was of this rare species of man with which it action imported much more than the power play. And this action, in this time of all the dictatorships (Germany, Italy, Spain, and even parties French antirépublicains), was vital with the eyes of a man of convictions. Arrived at the post of minister of State education, It had understood that the République could not be defended, been useful, built, that by people educated and educated in his democratic values. Because the democracy and the Republic seemed with part of the population an option which one could repeal: in 1934, the Small Newspaper organized a survey: “If France needed a dictator, which would you choose?” Pétain arrived at the head.

Quite conscious of the crucial importance of these building sites after the events of February 1934, visionary, incisive, but without illusion, it was going to employ all its heat to serve this cause.

One of the characteristics of the education system that Jean Zay regretted more was that who caused the loss, for the Republic, of subjects invaluable, hard-working and endowed, which, for lack of money, could not reach stations where they could have given best them-even. Contrary, poor spirits and nonchalants, thanks to their fortune, could without difficulty of reaching high the public office, without very having an adequate training. It was then the idea of the ENA, which was born only after the war. The recent topicality shows that the goal of Jean Zay was obtained poorly, because its pupils remain mainly resulting from the medium from notable, perpetuating a Republic of notable. However, the unification of their formation constitutes a progress. Thus, an English journalist wrote very recently: “… They have also a highly qualified administration, adapted to the challenges of Modern times, a direction of the History and nation” .

Its great project of reform of the education system (deposited in 1937, but ever voted because of war), one of most elaborate ever conceived, left the same conviction as the virtue, the intellectual abilities, and, to employ an obsolete expression, the heart, were not the prerogative of the easy classes, and than the company had very to gain to grant the maximum of chance to all, like forming the greatest number as well as possible. Its action also should be replaced, from a more temporal point of view, in the action of the government of Popular front, which had as an optics to extend until the working classes a life of much better quality, which for Jean Zay passed by the culture and the instruction, very as much as by the leisures, these famous “Paid vacations”, that one retains more today like emblematic this period.

Effective reforms

As minister, Jean Zay is at the origin of the multiplication of the purses to the pupils of primary education, of the compulsory schooling up to 14 years (13 years passage to 14 years), of the holidays brought back to the 14 instead of the July 31st, of the fight against school overwork, the limitation of the classes with 35 pupils (instead of 60 or more), of the class project work, the classes of orientation, the introduction of obligatory sporting education, the creation of the Higher committee of Works in favor of youth school and university (ancestor of CROUS which will be born only after war)… He creates many classes, canteens and summer camps. Jean Zay is still at the origin of ENA, of the Cannes festival, CNRS and he encourages the Bibliobus .

As a writer

Jean Zay written during his captivity Memories and loneliness which is published the first time in 1945.

Synopsis of Memories and loneliness

Winter 1940

1941

Spring

Insomnia

the Councils of the ministers

1942

Discipline of the prisoner

Portraits of prisoners

the day of Mercy-le-Haut

1943

secret Fauna

Another work of Jean Zay: Chronic of the Attic , ED. Scarlet

See too

Internal bonds

Popular front
Pedagogy
Célestin Freinet
Massilia
Léo Lagrange

External bonds

site of the Circle Jean Zay
Jean Zay on the site of the town of Orleans

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