Figure of the Mitterrand years, the former socialist minister Paul Quilès is dead

Published on : 09/24/2021 – 12:27

He was a prominent figure in the ruling Mitterrandie. Several times socialist minister in the 80s and 90s, in particular of the Interior and Defense, Paul Quilès died, Friday, September 24, at the age of 79 years.

Piercing blue eyes and a rare smile, this strict-looking Polytechnician had been at the center of a lively controversy in 1981 after clumsy remarks, exploited by the right, on the need to “make heads fall”, once the left coming to power.

Mayor of Cordes-sur-Ciel (Tarn) from 1995 to 2020, elected in the first round during four consecutive terms, he was deputy on several occasions, in Paris then in the Tarn, where Jean Jaurès was born.

Son of an officer and a teacher, Paul Quilès was born on January 27, 1942 in Saint-Denis-du-Sig, in French Algeria. After Polytechnique, he worked until 1978 as an engineer in the energy sector with the oil company Shell.

At the same time, this Catholic, former Christian student youth (JEC), entered the PS in 1972 and militated in the Mitterrandist current.

His political rise took off in 1981, when he became the director of the presidential campaign for François Mitterrand who, in May, acceded to the Élysée.

In October, during the Socialist Congress of Valence, he launched, referring to the senior administration: “We must not be content to say evasively, like Robespierre (…) in 1794: ‘Heads will fall’. We must say which ones and say it quickly! “. The right is indignant against the one it will nickname from then on “Robespaul”, argument widely used against him in 1983 when he will seek, in vain, the town hall of Paris against Jacques Chirac.

Supporter of nuclear disarmament

Paul Quilès, who was a moderate politician all his life, later explained that he actually wanted to “avoid what might have looked like a witch hunt.” But he admitted to having made the “mistake” of pronouncing a name, Robespierre, with “a strong negative charge”.

He later made public letters from right-wing politicians, such as Gérard Longuet or Patrick Devedjian, acknowledging their misinterpretation.

In 1993, the former Prime Minister Michel Rocard also estimated, in the review “L’histoire”, that Paul Quilès was made to say the opposite of what he wanted to say, accusing in passing the television of “transforming the debates of ideas in crisis, for the needs of the spectacular “.

Appointed Minister of Housing in 1983, Paul Quilès was promoted to the head of an enlarged Ministry of Tourism in 1984. From September 1985 to March 1986, he succeeded Charles Hernu at the Ministry of Defense, forced to resign following the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ case, the name of the Greenpeace ship sabotaged by the French secret services in New Zealand.

He was later found Minister of Posts and Space in the Rocard government (1988-91). He was then again appointed to Housing (and Transport), before obtaining the Interior portfolio, in 1992-93.

Elected in 1997 as chairman of the National Assembly’s Defense Committee, he chaired the following year the parliamentary fact-finding mission on Rwanda.

The father of three children was the president of the organization “Initiatives for nuclear disarmament”, aimed at “building a more secure world”. He had written, alone or in collaboration, three books on the question, “Nuclear, a French lie”, “Arrêtez la bombe!” and “The Nuclear Illusion”.

With AFP