Patrick Devedjian

Patrick Devedjian , born the August 26th 1944 with Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne), is lawyer and Politician French, member of the Union for a popular movement (UMP). He is president of the General advice of the Hauts-de-Seine and general secretary of the UMP.

Biography

Wire of an engineer Arménie N, born with Sivas in Turkey, immigrant in France because of the Armenian genocide, and a mother born with Boulogne-sur-Mer, Patrick Devedjian is high with the Armenian College of Sevres. The war of Algeria revives in him the memory of the genocide fled by his/her father and causes his engagement Nationaliste of youth.

Raise with the Lycée Condorcet, it continues a control of right to the Faculty of Law of Assas, then between with the Institut of political studies of Paris.

Lawyer with the bar of Paris since 1970, it in particular defended Jacques Chirac and Charles Pasqua.

Political career

Its beginnings

In 1964, Patrick Devedjian, like Alain Madelin, Herve Novelli, Claude Goasguen and Gerard Longuet, which has a score of years then, joined the activist group of extreme right-hand side Occident founded by Pierre Sidos. Patrick Devedjian affirms to have left this movement in 1966 following his meeting with Raymond Aron. However, according to the journalist Frederic Charpier, mentioned in the daily newspaper Release , Mr. Devedjian is member of this movement at least until January 1967, his distance of Occident being due to the deleterious climate which reigns in its center at that time. He since publicly assumed and regretted what he regards as a mistake of youth. In 1970, it directs the review Contrepoint , which was the ancestor of Commentaire .

Member in RPR

During the years which follow, its career of lawyer and its convictions political lead it to approach the new whole RPR, of which it writes the statutes with Charles Pasqua, to which it is close.

In 1977, the list of left taken along by the Communist senator André Aubry gains the municipal elections with Antony. Anticommunist convinced, Devedjian is presented in the name of RPR to take again the city.

It is beaten with legislative of 1978, like with cantonal of 1982 and with the local elections of March 1983. However, at the time of these last elections, after a recourse to the administrative court and the Council of State, the election is cancelled for fraud; it leaves victorious the second election and is elected mayor of Antony. On its list, Jean-Yves Gallou is assistant of the culture as a member of the Republican party: but when it adheres to the National front in 1985, Patrick Devedjian excludes it from the municipal majority.

Deputy

Elected official appointed in 1986, he is member until in 2002 of the committee of supply. Rapporteur of the agreements of GATT in 1993 then budget of Justice between 1997 and 2002, it is one of the rare members of Parliament of the Rassemblement for the Republic (RPR) to have voted in favor of the Traité of Maastricht in 1992. Within RPR, it is classified among the liberal .

During the presidential campaign of 1995, it is, with Nicolas Sarkozy, a fervent supporter of Edouard Balladur. After the duel Jacques Chirac/Edouard Balladur showed the defeat of the Balladur camp, it crosses one period of penitence within RPR like the majority of the balladuriens. It will return in grace during the presidential campaign of 2002.

Minister

The line gains in 2002; under the authority of Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of Interior Department, it is named deputy secretary with local Freedoms. Because of the request for Jacques Chirac that the ministers do not exercise any more an executive mandate, he resigns of his post of mayor of Antony in favor of the one of his assistants, Raymond Sibille, then Jean-Yves Sénant. It is its substitute Georges Siffredi who becomes appointed as the law envisages it.

When Nicolas Sarkozy is named with the Economy and Finances, Patrick Devedjian becomes deputy secretary with Industry until in May 2005, date on which it is not included in the Villepin government. Georges Siffredi resigns then to allow him to organize anticipated elections: Patrick Devedjian is re-elected appointed 13th district of the Hauts-de-Seine (Antony, Borough-the-Queen, Châtenay-Malabry, Sceaux) in October 2005.

When Nicolas Sarkozy resigns to assume the chairmanship of the UMP, Patrick Devedjian estimates that this one incarnates “décomplexée” right-wing policies and liberal.

As political adviser of Nicolas Sarkozy, Patrick Devedjian is one of the first members of UMP to be decided publicly for the withdrawal of CPE, although it beforehand defended on several occasions this measurement, resulting from a convention of his party.

Sarkozy presidency

At the time of the presidential election of 2007, it supports naturally the candidature of Nicolas Sarkozy. Hardly the gained election, of the tensions appear between the new president of the Republic and Patrick Devedjian. This last had been announced a long time like future Minister for Justice , station which will be entrusted to Rachida Dati. May 18th, 2007, Patrick Devedjian does not form part of the Gouvernement Francois Fillon (1) and announced his irritation as for the opening preached by Nicolas Sarkozy. He succeeds Nicolas Sarkozy with the presidency of the General advice of the Hauts-de-Seine on June 1st 2007.

Appointed deputy general secretary of UMP to replace Brice Hortefeux, then General secretary on September 25th, 2007, it shares the direction of the UMP with Jean-Pierre Raffarin, first vice-president.

In June 2007, Patrick Devedjian, to have qualified bitch the ex-deputy Anne-Marie Comparini (Modem) during an abstract discussion filmed by the local chain TLM, attracts herself the judgment of many policies and the president of the Republic for her remarks and presents her excuses to Anne-Marie Comparini into private then in public.

Political mandates

since 2007: President of the general advice of the Hauts-de-Seine and General secretary of the UMP
2004 - 2007: General adviser and vice-president of the General advice of the Hauts-de-Seine
2004 - 2005: Deputy secretary with Industry
2003 - 2005: President of the the Community of agglomeration Tops of Beaver
2002 - 2004: Deputy secretary with local Freedoms
2002 - 2005: Second assistant of the mayor of Antony (Hauts-de-Seine)
1999 - 2001: Spokesperson of the Gathering for the Republic (RPR)
1986 - 2002, then since 2005: Deputy of the Hauts-de-Seine
1983 - 2002: Mayor of Antony (Hauts-de-Seine)

He is also departmental secretary of the UMP federation of the Hauts-de-Seine.

Various engagements

The Armenian Community

Engaged within the Armenian community of France, from which it is resulting, Patrick Devedjian militates in particular for the recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Turkey. He is in addition at the origin of the parliamentary re-examination, eight years after a first unfruitful attempt of the left, of a bill finally adopted in October 2006 and per which France recognizes the existence of the Armenian genocide.

Twenty years earlier, in 1985, Patrick Devedjian had qualified “resistance” the actions of the terrorist organization Armenian secret Armée with release of Arménie (Asala) which made a hundred attacks between 1975 and 1983 with an aim of forcing the recognition of the Armenian genocide by Turkey and the international community. He was besides the lawyer of certain members of Asala. A Turkish weekly magazine pays at the time the remarks that Patrick Devedjian would have held on this subject, in 1983.

Accession of Turkey at the EU

Patrick Devedjian militates against the entry of Turkey in the European Union, estimating that it does not respect yet the Critères of Copenhagen. According to him, Turkey does not assume its past (Négation of the Armenian genocide), does not recognize certain Member States of the European Union (the République of Cyprus) and persecutes certain minorities (Kurdish ).

In its book With me the ministry for the word , it writes:

“I thus remain very favorable to the dialog with Turkey, in spite of his brutality and his unacceptable attitude, symbolized by the military occupation of part of the European territory - the northern half of Cyprus - at the time when she asks to be integrated there juridically. ” (p.190);
“the entry of Turkey is incompatible with the European project, which precisely rests, for each country which adheres to it, on the mourning of nationalism. This is why Turkey refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide and trails in justice those which are indignant some, like the writer Orhan Pamuk. It would be lived like a humiliation. In the same way, the evacuation of Cyprus-north and the recognition of Cyprus-south would be lived like a defeat. That explains finally why Turkey cannot agree to shelter a Kurdish minority: it would be felt like a dismemberment of the nation, a threat for its unit” (p. 191).

Other affiliations

Patrick Devedjian is member of the European Mouvement - France since the beginning of the Années 1990. He was the vice-president until 2002. In addition he was member of the Commission Trilateral, and invited to the Bilderberg Meetings in 1993 and 2006.

Publications

the time of the judges , Flammarion (1996).
To think the line , Plon (1999).
With me the ministry for the word , the Archipelago (2006).
Decentralization: tapestry of Pénélope , Comment n°113, Spring 2006.

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