Gaston Monnerville
Gaston Monnerville ( born January 2, 1897 in Cayenne, † November 7, 1991 in Paris) was a French lawyer, politician and Constitutional Court judges.
Life
Monnerville, grandson of a slave, grew up in French Guiana and successfully finished his studies in Toulouse. In 1918, he became a lawyer and worked with the lawyer and later politician César Campinchi. Monnerville joined the Parti républicain, radical et radical - Socialiste. In 1932 he moved as a deputy for French Guiana in the French National Assembly. He served in the government from 1937 to 1938 under Camille Chautemps the Office of Secretary of State for the Colonies. He was the first black member of the French government.
At the beginning of World War II he served in the French Navy on the battleship Provence. On July 17, 1940 he was demobilized after the defeat against Germany. He protested against the Armistice of Marshal Pétain and complained about the treatment of French colonial subjects by the Vichy government.
Participation in the Resistance
The end of 1940 he joined the Combat, one of the strongest groups of the Resistance. As a lawyer in unoccupied Marseille he defended prisoners and persecuted by the Vichy government for their political views or their origin people. He was repeatedly interrogated and arrested by the Vichy police. After the complete occupation of France by German troops in 1942, he joined the Maquis of Auvergne under the alias " Commander St-Just ." With his wife Cheylade he founded in 1944 a military hospital. 1944 sent him the Radical Party in the " Provisional Consultative Assembly " of the French Provisional Government.
Member of the Government and Senator
In 1945 he was appointed chairman of a commission to work out a method for the future status of Overseas Territory. In October 1945, he was then elected as a delegate from French Guiana in the "First Constituent Assembly " of the Fourth Republic and the second Constituent Assembly of 1946. In 1946 he was French delegate at the first meeting of the UN. An election in the third Constituent Assembly in November 1946 failed, because part of the population of French Guiana would not accept his efforts to close the prison on Devil's Island. Instead, he got a seat in the Senate, was immediately elected Vice - President of the Republic and became one of the most active members of this board. In March 1947, he was elected President of the Council with 141 votes against 131 for the Communist candidates.
In 1948 he moved his residence from Guyana in the French department of Lot. He was re-elected Senator and retained the seat and the office of President until the end of the Fourth Republic in 1958.
Senator of the Fifth Republic
1958 supported Monnerville Charles de Gaulle when returning to power, but he disagreed with the resolution of the Fourth Republic on the part of the general. As the Fifth Republic was founded then, he earned a place in the Senate and in 1959 was elected president of the Senate, where he served until 1968.
In 1962, he campaigned against the French presidential election reform referendum, a greatly desired by Charles de Gaulle reform. He used the term forfaiture ( " abuse of office " ) on the behavior of Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, who signed the referendum.
From 1977 to 1983 he was a member of the Constitutional Court.