Michel Chiha (1891 - 1954) was a politician and a Lebanese philosopher. He was also banker, writer and journalist. It is one of the principal writers of the Constitution of the Lebanon, its ideas deeply marked the foundation of the political line and economic of modern Lebanon.

The father of Michel Chiha had founded in 1891 the Bank Pharaon and Chiha. In 1915, its family flees Lebanon under Othoman domination and settles in Egypt, where its interest for the policy appears. It returns to Lebanon at the end of the war to direct the businesses of the family.

September 1st, 1920]], the French High commissioner proclaims the birth of Large Lebanon. Chiha played a big role to lead to this proclamation, after having worked on the layout of the borders and the institutions of the republic. In 1925, it is elected appointed of Beirut, a station which it will preserve until in 1929. During its mandate, he played a leading role to develop the bases of the systems financier and monetarist of the country.

In 1926, it marries his/her cousin Marguerite Pharaon, sister of Henri Pharaon. In 1929, Chiha gave up the political life in a strict sense, but continued to influence by its ideas and its works the development instutitionnel of Lebanon and the guiding lines of its economic guideline.

In 1937, it buys the Lebanese French-speaking daily the Day, which it will direct until its death in 1954. In 1940, it took share with the Beirut Stock Exchange launching and created an anglophone newspaper, The Eastern Times.

In 1943, his/her brother-in-law Béchara el-Khoury becomes the first President of the independent Lebanese Republic. Chiha was its close adviser until the end of his mandate in 1952.

Works published.

• Interior policy (1964), Editions of the Trident, Beirut, OCLC 5223379.

• Palestine (1969), Tridant Publications, Beirut, OCLC 121803
• the house of the fields, followed new Poems (1965), catholic Printing works, Beirut, OCLC 5049616
• Tests (1950), Editions of the Trident, Beirut, OCLC 14244144
• Face and presence of Lebanon (1964), Lebanese Coterie, Beirut, OCLC 5193480
• Lebanon: off has rapid survey Lebanon, yesterday and today in sixty-furnace photographs (1948), Paris, OCLC 36243459
• Lebanon of today: 1942 (1949), Editions of the Trident, Beirut, OCLC 25712681
• Variations on the Mediterranean (1994), Chiha Foundation, Beirut, OCLC 39985361
• Images of Lebanon: an outline in sixty-four photographs of Lebanon of formerly and today (1948), Editions Light, Paris, OCLC 13657428
• Matter of Lebanese economy (1965), Editions of the Trident, Beirut, OCLC 27405213
• Lubnān fī shakhṣīyatihi wa-ḥuḍūrih (1962), Al-Nadwah Al-Lubnānīyah, Bayrūt, OCLC 25338528
• Lebanon At home and abroad (1966), Lebanese Coterie, Beirut, OCLC 48328530
• Filasṭīn (1960), Muʼassasat Mīshāl Shīḥā, Bayrūt, OCLC 46762632
• Plainsong, remarks Sunday (1954), Editions of the Trident, Beirut, OCLC 43170583

External bonds

• Site of the Foundation Michel Chiha