Michel Debre Is Loyal To De Gaulle

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28792, 13 January 1959, Page 9

Michel Debre Is Loyal To De Gaulle

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) ’ LONDON, January 12. Michel Debre, the first Prime Minister under France’s new regime, is known throughout the country as a man .who never let de Gaulle down. From the day he escaped from a German prisoner of war camp to join de Gaulle he has been unswervingly loyal to him personally as well as to the principle for which de Gaulle stands.

Aged 46, Debre is a member of one of the Jewish families which have contributed so largely to French professional and public life. He is a son of Dr. Robert Debre, who was president of the w French Academy of Medicine before the war.

He took a doctorate in law at Paris University and also studied fct the school of political science. He always had a deep interest in history. He did his military trailing at a cavalry school and was a cavalry officer during the war until he was taken prisoner at the fall of France. ’

He escaped and made his way to Morocco before returning to France to help form the resistance movement. Here it was that he began his close association with de Gaulle. By 1943 he had become second to de Gaulle in the resistance organisation in occupied France. He was one of . the original members of the rally founded in 1947 and a year later he was elected to the Senate, of which he had been a member ever since. When de Gaulle returned to power last year he appointed

Debre Minister of Justice, in which capacity Debre played a big part in drawing up the new Constitution and many other measures of the de Gaulle Government.

dence and placed a brake on her own individual progress. However, he favoured a unified Europe—including England—provided a strong and free France cotild take her rightful part In its leadership.

“The Times’s” Paris correspondent says Debre*s sympathetic personality had always tended to evoke a response even from people of widely differing outlooks, but his political reputation had never stood high, largely because of excesses into which his beliefs had tended to lead him. That de Gaulle should have chosen him reinforced the idea that the new President was going to exercise close control of all aspects of public policy. De Gaulle knew he could count on Debres loyalty. The “News Chronicle" says Debre’s bitter criticism of various European projects—the defence community and, more recently, Euratom and the Common Market -r-had earned him the reputation of being anti-European. He denied this just as he denied being anti-American and antiBritish. He criticised various agreements because he consideigd they harmed France’s indepeh-

Legislation By Decree

PARIS. January 11. Michel Debre’s newly-formed French Government will seek the National Assembly’s approval of its programme on January 15. The new Information Minister (Mr Roger Frey) said yesterday that the Government WOtfid uSa the full powers tehfch the CbtbXl tuiion accorded ft utitir February 5. The powers would allow the Government to pass decrees without reference to Parliament The new Parliament would not meet in a legislative session until April 28. So. between February 5 and April 28 the Government would no longer be able to pass legislation by decree.