Michel Rocard

Background

Michel Rocard was born on August 23, 1930, in the outskirts of Paris. His father was a nuclear physicist Yves Rocard who worked on France's first atomic bomb.

Education

Like many politicians of his generation, he got his start by attending the National School of Administration (ENA) and then beginning his career in the civil service.

Career

Many party leaders advocated merging with other non-communist left groups following François Mitterrand's surprisingly strong (but unsuccessful) presidential campaign in 1965. Rocard, on the other hand, realized there was a need for a party like the PSU that could be an incubator for new ideas, especially regarding democratic socialism and decentralization. Therefore, he spearheaded a campaign to save the party and was named its national secretary in 1967.

Still, Rocard was primarily a theoretician who was little known outside of Parisian intellectual circles. Then came the uprising of May and June 1968. The PSU enthusiastically supported both the students and the workers in their protests against the Gaullist regime.

By the end of 1968 the PSU started calling itself a revolutionary party and based its appeal on the issues and enthusiasm of the revolt, especially on the idea of autogestion or self-managed, decentralized socialism. Rocard came to personify the ideas and enthusiasm that had burst into the open during those two months. President Charles de Gaulle resigned in 1969.

In the ensuing presidential elections, Michel Rocard did remarkably well, almost as well as the conventional socialist candidate, Gaston Defferre. That showing catapulted Rocard into the front ranks of French politicians. Public opinion polls for the next two decades showed him to be one of France's most popular politicians.

Late in 1969 he won a seat in the National Assembly in a by-election in Paris' western suburbs. Rocard began having troubles with the PSU at this time, however. The center of gravity of the party shifted further and further to the left. In the meantime, Rocard and his supporters came to the conclusion that revolution was not possible at the same time that a new reformist party (the Socialist Party [PS]) adopted many of the PSU's positions, including autogestion.

Finally, in 1974, Rocard led his supporters into the PS, just after the presidential elections in which Mitterrand barely lost to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Rocard became the PS national secretary for the public sector and saw his national popularity soar. In addition, as he began to grapple with both the economic and the electoral realities he shifted quickly to the right, shelving virtually all of his radical past except for autogestion. Began His Ministerial Career Rocard was reelected to the National Assembly in 1978.

In 1980 public opinion polls showed him having the best chance of defeating President Giscard d'Estaing, but out of loyalty to François Mitterrand he withdrew his candidacy that October. When Mitterrand won the presidency the next May, Rocard began his ministerial career. Under Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy, Rocard served as minister of state for planning and regional development. Under Mauroy, and later Laurent Fabius, he also served as minister of agriculture. In both positions his influence was limited by his rivalry with President Mitterrand.

Finally, in May 1985, Rocard resigned from the cabinet in opposition to the government's "expedient introduction of proportional representation" and the following month announced a tentative decision to run for the presidency when Mitterrand's term ended in 1988. Appointed as Prime Minister Rocard lost the 1988 presidential election to Mitterrand, but was named Prime Minister. Two days after his appointment, Rocard allocated 16 of the 26 cabinet posts to Socialists. This cabinet was the first minority government formed under the 30-year-old fifth republic. Rocard continued to be a popular politician with the public, winning a popularity poll in 1990 as the leader in whom the public had the most confidence.

In May 1991 Mitterrand replaced Rocard as Prime Minister with Edith Cresson, the first woman to claim the position. Rocard stated that he resigned the post to concentrate on the 1995 presidential campaign.

In 1993 Rocard became the leader of the Socialist Party but resigned after only 14 months, when the party held a vote of no-confidence. This vote was due to poor election results for the Socialists, who received only 15% of the vote, the worst showing in two decades. This put an end to Rocard's presidential aspirations.

In 1995 Rocard was chosen to be one of the 15-member Canberra Commission for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, an international group formed by Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and charged with helping to abolish nuclear weapons. He also was elected a board member of the International Crisis Group, founded in 1995 to help governments head off impending crises in unstable parts of the world.

He remained active in European Union politics as late as June 2014, when he delivered his thoughts on the British on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy.

Rocard died on 2 July 2016 in Paris, at the age of 85.

Achievements

• He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 1991, during which he created the Revenu minimum d'insertion (RMI), a social minimum welfare program for indigents, and achieved the Matignon Accords regarding the status of New Caledonia. He was a member of the European Parliament, and was strongly involved in European policies until 2009. In 2007, he joined a Commission under the authority of Sarkozy's Minister of Education, Xavier Darcos.
  
  Even though never achieving his goal to become president, Michel Rocard still had a remarkable influence in shaping French political life. He had a great ability to define issues and to set the agenda that politicians and intellectuals must discuss in confronting France's problems.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Une histoire du XXe siècle: Entretiens avec Claude Imbert

    (Avec une grande liberté de parole, au travers d'anecdotes...)

  • Trabajar con el corazón (Politica y Derecho) (Spanish Edition)

    (Según Michel Rocard, en la búsqueda de igualdad de oportu...)

  • Si La Gauche Savait. Entretiens Avec Georges-Marc Benamou (English and French Edition)

    (Michel Rocard, l'homme du "parler vrai", se livre pour la...)

  • Mes idées pour demain

    (Hard to find book)

  • A l'e?preuve des faits: Textes politiques, 1979-1985 (Points) (French Edition)

    (Hard to find book)

  • Le cœur a? l'ouvrage (French Edition)

    (343pages. in8. broché. quelques passages soulignés au cra...)

  • Pour une autre Afrique (French Edition)
  • Je suis allé à Charletty comme à un enterrement
  • Rapports sur les camps en Algerie
  • Un Pays Comme Le Notre (French Edition)
  • Une Histoire Du Xxe Siecle
  • Les Services Secrets Français Sont-Ils Nuls? Preface de Michel Rocard
  • Le franc?ais, langue des droits de l'homme: Essai (Collection Echos du soir) (French Edition)
  • Michel Rocard: Entretien avec Judith Waintraub
  • Trois ébranlements du champ politique
  • ti na kanoume gia tin antimetopisi tis anergias
  • L'art de la paix (French Edition)
  • Parler Vrai (Collection Points) (French Edition)
  • Les Moyens d'en sortir (French Edition)

Religion

He was born to a Protestant family.

Politics

In 1958 Rocard was part of a group of socialists who left the SFIO and with other activists formed the new Unified Socialist Party (PSU). Throughout the early 1960s the PSU remained small and lacked a firm identity. In 1958 Rocard was part of a group of socialists who left the SFIO and with other activists formed the new Unified Socialist Party (PSU). Throughout the early 1960s the PSU remained small and lacked a firm identity.

Having left the SFIO because of Guy Mollet's position towards the Algerian war, he led the dissident Unified Socialist Party (PSU) from 1967 to 1974. In 1974, he joined François Mitterrand and the renewed Socialist Party (PS), which had replaced the old SFIO. Most of the PSU members and a part of the French and Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT) trade union – the non-Marxist section of the left that Rocard famously defined as the "Second Left" – followed him.

On the French political scene, Rocard presented himself as the political heir of Pierre Mendès-France, known for his moral rigour, and as the politician who "speaks the truth".

Like other Socialist politicians, such as Jack Lang or Hubert Védrine, who accepted similar positions, Rocard accepted a post on the Committee on the re-evaluation of the teaching profession, which was placed under the "high authority" of Sarkozy's Minister of Education Xavier Darcos.

The PSU did quite poorly in the 1973 legislative elections. Rocard himself lost his seat in Parliament. On the other hand, the PS did extremely well, ending almost a generation of losses for social democratic parties. Rocard gave up the leadership of the party and returned to the civil service.

Connections

Father:

Yves Rocard

References

• Le myste?re Rocard (French Edition)
• Rocard: Le rendez-vous manque? (Collection Constats) (French Edition)
• Michel Rocard
• Michel Rocard (French Edition)