Pierre Messmer, 91; official overhauled the French army in 1960s

Pierre Messmer, 91, a French government official who headed the overhaul of the army after the Algerian civil war and served as prime minister from 1972 to 1974, died Wednesday at Val-de-Grace hospital in Paris.

Messmer joined the French Resistance in 1940, fleeing Nazi-occupied France for England on a cargo ship. He then participated in major campaigns in North Africa and elsewhere and stormed the beaches of Normandy in June 1944.

He entered politics after the war and was appointed prime minister in July 1972 by then-President Georges Pompidou. After Pompidou’s death in April 1974, Messmer was widely viewed as a potential presidential candidate, but he was outmaneuvered by rivals and never held another major political office.

Born March 20, 1916, in the Paris suburb of Vincennes, Messmer studied to work as an administrator in France’s overseas colonies. After World War II, he worked in Vietnam and later West Africa on the decolonization of France’s overseas possessions.

Messmer was named minister of the armed forces under Gen. Charles de Gaulle in 1960, when France’s war in Algeria was reaching its bloody apex. After the North African nation won its independence in 1962, Messmer headed France’s overhaul of the army. He assigned 100 of the most anti-Gaullist generals to higher-ranking positions that had less actual power, such as military attaches to South American countries.