Gaston Monnerville; French Legislator
Gaston Monnerville, president of the French Senate from 1948 to 1968 and a staunch political foe of Charles de Gaulle, has died at his Paris home after a long illness. He was 94.
His death Thursday was announced Friday in the National Assembly. Prime Minister Edith Cresson hailed Monnerville as a “man of courage, a humanist and a Resistance member.”
Monnerville vehemently but unsuccessfully opposed the referendum held in 1962, at De Gaulle’s urging, which approved a constitutional amendment establishing direct, popular election of France’s president.
He maintained that the change, which eliminated an electoral college, eroded the powers of Parliament.
Born in French Guyana in 1897, Monnerville was the son of a colonial administrator. He worked as a lawyer in Paris during the 1920s. He was elected to Parliament in 1932 and served as undersecretary of state for colonial affairs in 1937-38.
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