Former socialist minister Paul Quilès died at the age of 79 – franceinfo

A heavyweight of socialism is gone. Paul Quilès, minister several times in the 1980s and 1990s, notably of the Interior and of Defense under the presidency of François Mitterrand, died Friday, September 24 at the age of 79, announced his daughter, Emmanuelle Quilès. “My father passed away this morning in Paris. He fought to the end as he always had done in his life for others”, she added. His death was first announced by mistake, Tuesday, September 21.

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 Tarn, birthplace of Jean Jaurès. His political rise took a real boom in 1981, when he became the director of the presidential campaign of François Mitterrand who, in May, acceded to the Elysee Palace.

In 1997, he was elected chairman of the National Assembly’s Defense Committee and, the following year, he chaired the parliamentary information mission on Rwanda. The father of three was the president of the Nuclear Disarmament Initiatives organization, which aims to “building a more secure world”.