Maurice Schumann

Maurice Schumann
Maurice Schumann (1969)
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 22 June 1969 – 15 March 1973
President	Georges Pompidou
Prime Minister	Jacques Chaban-Delmas Pierre Messmer
Preceded by	Michel Debré
Succeeded by	André Bettencourt
Personal details
Born	(1911-04-10)10 April 1911 16th arrondissement of Paris, France
Died	9 February 1998(1998-02-09) (aged 86) Paris, France
Political party	MRP (1944–1967) UDR (1967–1976) RPR (1976–1998)
Education	Lycée Janson-de-Sailly Lycée Henri-IV
Alma mater	Sorbonne

Maurice Schumann (French pronunciation: [mɔʁis ʃuman]; 10 April 1911 – 9 February 1998) was a French politician, journalist, writer, and hero of the Second World War who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under Georges Pompidou from 22 June 1969 to 15 March 1973. Schumann was a member of the Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement.

The son of an Alsatian Jewish father and Roman Catholic mother, he studied at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly and the Lycée Henri-IV. He converted to his mother's faith in 1937. He once said of France's fate when suffering the Allied bombing raids, '....and now we are reduced to the most atrocious fate: to be killed without killing back, to be killed by friends without being able to kill our enemies'. During the Second World War he broadcast news reports and commentaries into France on the BBC French Service some 1,000 times in programs such as Honneur et Patrie. He was called by some the "voice of France".

During a meeting of the foreign ministers of the European Community in 1969, he stated France's conditions for Britain joining the community on its third application, i.e. questions of agricultural finance had to be settled first. Schumann died on 9 February 1998 in Paris, aged 86.

External links

• Interview about the French nuclear program for the WGBH series, War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
• ordredelaliberation.fr Archived 21 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine