Félix Éboué

Félix Éboué (* December 1885 in Cayenne, French Guiana, † May 17, 1944 in Cairo, Egypt) was a French colonial politicians.

Life

Eboue came from French Guiana. His grandparents had still been slaves. Félix Éboué was the second youngest of five sons of Yves Urbain Eboue and Marie Josephine Aurélie Leveillé. The policy of assimilation and a scholarship enabled the gifted student to attend school in Bordeaux. In addition to his school, he distinguished himself as captain of a successful football team.

After studying at the École coloniale in Paris Eboue joined the French colonial administration. After many years in Ubangi -Shari, now the Central African Republic, he became in 1932 Secretary-General in the administration of Martinique. From 1934 he filled the same post in French Sudan. 1936 Eboue governor of Guadeloupe, where he organized the first free elections. He was after Louis Blacher the second black man who received a governor's post in the French colonial administration. In 1939 he became governor in Chad.

On August 26, 1940, he was the first governor of a French colony, assistant to Charles de Gaulle's government in exile. This Eboue appointed governor-general of all French Equatorial Africa. In this position, he promoted locals as functionaries of the colonial administration. In November 1941 he published a program for " new native policy ". In it, he advocated a new management model for the colonies, which should include the African chief traditions and the indigenous elites. Even during the Second World War, this program was implemented. Eboue was appointed an Officer of the Legion of Honour and awarded on 29 January 1941, the Ordre de la Libération.

Félix Éboué died during a business trip to Cairo from a heart attack. Upon resolution of the National Assembly, his remains were transferred along with those Victor Schoelcher on May 20, 1949 Pantheon and buried in a grave of honor. He is the first black man to be honored in France this way. The Place Félix Eboué, in the 12th arrondissement of Paris bears his name.

1946 married his daughter Leopold Sedar Senghor, the future president of Senegal.