Roland Dumas
Roland Dumas ( born August 23, 1922 in Limoges ) is a French lawyer and politician.
Life
Dumas was in the Resistance (like his father, who was therefore executed in 1944 by German occupiers ). He studied from 1945 to 1949 law at the University of Paris, at the Institut d' études politiques in Paris and at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Dumas represented as a lawyer at the beginning of the Fifth Republic successfully François Mitterrand (1916-1996) in a libel case. Later he acted as celebrity advocate, among other things, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean -Paul Sartre, Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. He represented Pablo Picasso when he left his Guernica lead back and set out its inheritance.
Political career
1956 to 1958 Dumas was elected to the French National Assembly as a deputy of the small Union démocratique et Socialiste de la Résistance ( UDSR ). Before the presidential elections in 1965 Dumas arranges a meeting between the Communists Waldeck Rochet and Emil Mitterrand, in which the project of a Union left was first discussed. From 1967 to 1968, again in 1981 Dumas has now been selected in the Dordogne in the National Assembly as a member of the Parti Socialiste français.
In 1983 Dumas Europe minister under President Mitterrand. Mid-1984, he was appointed government spokesman. Because of the Chad conflict, he was appointed negotiator with Libya. From 1984 to 1986 he was Secretary of State under Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, during which he presented the project EUREKA 1985 as a joint Franco-German initiative. From 1988 to 1993 he was again Secretary of State under the Prime Ministers Michel Rocard, Edith Cresson and Pierre Bérégovoy, then in 1995 President of the Constitutional Council, the French Constitutional Court.
He was involved in various judicial affairs (Elf affair) on suspicion of corruption. He was accused to have his mistress Christine Deviers - Joncour helped to adjustment with Elf and to have developed a costly lifestyle with her between 1989 and 1993, got paid the Deviers - Joncour by former Elf chief Alfred Sirven from funds of the company. Deviers - Joncour should have approximately € 10 million illegal means of Sirven get what they put € alone about 2.6 million in a luxury apartment, but had never lived in Dumas. Ultimately, the corruption accusation against Dumas focused on a number of elaborate restaurant meals (€ 50,000 ), Greek statuettes ( € 45,000 ) and a pair of expensive, hand-sewn shoes ( € 1,800 ), which had given him Deviers - Joncour. He has been the subject of countless jokes, especially about the price of said footwear. Dumas was sentenced without parole in 2001 to 30 months in prison, of which 6. This judgment was overturned on appeal in 2003, Dumas was acquitted. The allegations of corruption was a sale of the defense and electronics group Thales of six frigates to Taiwan, against which Dumas had initially pronounced with regard to the People's Republic of China, but was eventually changed sides and had agreed to the deal.
During his presidency of the Constitutional Council français he has given the opinion announced that the legal immunity of the President of the Republic including the crimes and offenses of common law. This view was very controversial because of the involvement of President Jacques Chirac in countless political and financial affairs ( election fraud, hot shops, false invoices, embezzlement of public funds, public procurement against kickbacks, etc.) and because of its own involvement by Roland Dumas in the Elf affair. In the spring of 1999, Dumas was on leave from his chairmanship of the Constitutional Court, a year later he put this office at the opening of the court session.