Joseph Barthelemy

A defender of the liberal democracy (1900-1935)

He is doctor in right in 1900, then aggregate in 1906. He is teaching with the faculty of Lille, then with that of Aix-en-Provence, while being lawyer registered with the bar of Paris. He becomes then professor of masterly row to the faculty of Montpellier. Then, as from 1914, it occupies the pulpit of constitutional law to the Faculty of Law of Paris, like that of parliamentary and legislative history to the Private school of political sciences. It keeps these two stations until the Second world war.

From 1904 to 1920, it publishes many texts claiming an improvement of the Third Republic, by the granting of the right to vote to the women, and by a rebalancing of the capacities in favor of the president of the Republic, without to change the parliamentary nature of the mode.

It enters in policy in 1919, when it becomes Député of the Gers, member of the Republican party of national restoration and of the democratic Alliance (right moderate), connected with the parliamentary group of the republican and social Action, that it chairs. Joseph Barthélémy defends as appointed the ideas that it had developed during the previous years. In 1922, it defends with his colleague of group Paul Reynaud a less hard policy with respect to the Germany.

Re-elected in 1924, it loses its seat in 1928, after the re-establishment of the majority poll of district. It fails to find it in 1936, after having tried in vain to be made elect appointed of Paris at the time of bys-election in 1931, then at the time of the general elections of 1932.

It turns over to its activities of teacher and becomes leader-writer with the daily newspaper Time . It continues to defend its ideas on the institutional reform, and also proposes to withdraw with the members of Parliament the budgetary matter initiative. It always takes care to defend only of the projects remaining in the spirit of the constitutional laws of 1875. He is elected member of the Academy of Science morals and political in 1927.

The drift autoritarist (1936-1940)

Partisan of the economic liberalism since his youth, it highly criticizes the attempts at interventions of the State in the economy. Until the middle of the years 1930, this position is for him the complement necessary of political liberalism. But, as from 1936-37, the defense of the order and economic freedoms appears increasingly contradictory to him with the democracy such as it functions at the time.

He highly criticizes the policy interventionist of the Popular front, in particular week the 40 hours and the National interdisciplinary office of corn. He sees in the policy thus followed a transfer of the Soviet experiment ( the Review of Paris , August 1936) and fears a revolutionary insurrection.

Vis-a-vis the War of Spain, he is opposed firmly to any support of France for the republican government, opponent legality and legitimacy. He goes until comparing the pro-Franco insurrectionists to the Americans revolted for England, in 1776, and denies with the Socialists or, a fortiori, to the Communists, straight to control legitimately, even if they obtain the support of a majority of the votes cast at the time of free elections, as it was the case in France and Spain. In spring of 1938, it justifies juridically the transfer of the Sudètes in Germany Nazi.

While refusing totalitarianisms, which violate too the rights of the individual, Barthélémy leans more and more towards an authoritative solution. Ignoring the social transformations of the inter-war period, he “deplores a past dreamed and idealized” (Gilles Martinez), which leads it to defend of the positions reactionaries frankly.

Minister in Vichy (1941-1943)

Rejoined with the Mode of Vichy of the Marshal Pétain as of the month of August 1940, he is Minister for the Justice from January 27th, 1941 to March 26th, 1943.

Very favorable to Pétain, it supports it until the end. Neither the hardening of the mode, in 1941-1942, nor the return of Pierre Laval as head of government, in April 1942 - which hardly loves its Minister for Justice and gets busy to marginalize it -, do not make it change opinion. Like member of the government, it reaffirms its hostility with the laws voted by the Popular front and its wish of a strong birthrate, considered to be necessary vis-a-vis to the Germany.

Lawyer, it is one of the principal writers of the constitution project of 1941, and defends the text while asserting that “freedom is not the foundation of the institutions” but “crowning, the luxury”, once the circumstances allow it. For Barthélémy, the situation requires a definitely authoritative solution, that Gilles Martinez brings closer to the mode founded by Salazar with the Portugal. It does not feel reluctant with the inscription of racial discrimination in the constitutional text, the equality of the civil laws being reserved to the “French who do not belong to another race”. Admiring of the Monarchy of July, it from now on is allured by the ideas antiégalitaires of the Orléanisme.

Like member of the government, it is one of the signatories of the law on the Statute of the Jews of June 2nd, 1941, adopted on the initiative of Xavier Vallat. In the Fatherland from June-July 1941, it affirms to have “the heart split vis-a-vis so many individual situations” painful created by the statute of the Jews, but it does not justify of them less these measurements in the name of the ordinary arguments of the anti-semitism spread in the previous years: the Jews would refuse to be integrated, and would be even responsible for the defeat of 1940. For him, the Jews are also responsible for the deterioration of the French nation which obsesses it since 1936.

In August 1941, Joseph Barthelemy cosigne the law creating the martial special sections of the courses and the special section of the Court of Appeal of Paris, jurisdictions of exception in front of which no recourse is possible. Unfavorable to such a measurement, it however applies it in all full knowledge of the facts.

It is also one of the signatories with Abel Bonnard of the law number 744 of the August 6th 1942 ( Official journal of August 27th, 1942) sanctioning the homosexual acts below blackjack years, whereas the hétérosexuelle majority is then at fifteen years. This law, unapplied under IVe Republic, re-used under the presidency of the General de Gaulle, will be repealed in 1982.

Barthelemy was the liberal more engaged with the mode of Vichy, but not only: Pierre-Etienne Flandin, Jacques Bardoux, Lucien Romier or Emile Mireaux, companions of Barthelemy to the Time or democratic Alliance, them also exerted responsibilities in Vichy.

The last years (1943-1945)

Become awkward by his increasing reserves, Joseph Barthélémy is replaced by Maurice Gabolde with the ministry for Justice and returns to teach with the Faculty of Law of Paris. He writes his Memories and returns partially to his ideas of before 1936, asking for example the restoration of the vote for all, but defends, a contrario parliamentarism, a presidential regime.

Accused with the Release and imprisoned with Auch on October 6th, 1944. During the purification, its file is informed by the High court of justice, but he dies before the end of the legal procedure.

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