Background
He was born on January 23, 1920, at Jacqueville, some 40 miles from Abidjan.
He was born on January 23, 1920, at Jacqueville, some 40 miles from Abidjan.
He was educated at the Bingerville Higher Primary School and later at the William Ponty School in Senegal.
He was a school-teacher for two years before enlisting with the Free French Forces. Highly decorated in the World War, he went back to teaching in 1946 at the same time that he became very active in regional politics. In 1949 he was elected secretary-general of the Ivory Coast Teachers’ Trade Union and four years later he acceded to the country’s top political job when he became secretary-general of the PDCI. In March 1952 he was elected to the Territorial Assembly and in 1958 to the National Assembly. He was successively re-elected in November 1960, 1965 and 1970. He was also appointed Great Councillor of French West Africa in 1952, and became a Senator of the French Community from 1959 until 1961 at the time that he headed the Alliance Group for a United Community and a Democratic Left at the Legislative Assembly.
As President of the National Assembly in 1960, he revealed an undisputed mastery of parliamentary politics. In 1961 President Houphouet Boigny appointed him President of the Supreme Court.