Everything about Pierre B R Govoy totally explained
Pierre Eugène Bérégovoy (
23 December 1925 –
1 May 1993) was a
French Socialist politician of
Ukrainian origin. He served as
Prime Minister under
François Mitterrand from
1992 to
1993.
Early career
Pierre Bérégovoy was born in
Déville-lès-Rouen,
Haute-Normandie to a
Ukrainian immigrant family (original family name
Береговой) who had left the
Russian Empire after the
Russian Civil War.
He started his professional life at the age of 16 as a qualified metal worker. He got involved in politics following his activities in the
French Resistance - while working at
SNCF during
World War II. Member of the trade unions confederation
Workers Force, he left the Socialist party
SFIO in 1959 and participated to the foundation of the
Unified Socialist Party (PSU). He became an adviser of
Pierre Mendès-France. In 1967, with
Alain Savary, a create the pro-Mendès-France Union of clubs for the renewal of the left. This group joined the
Socialist Party (PS) in 1969. He joined the executive group of the party behind
François Mitterrand.
In 1981, when Mitterrand was elected
President of France, he was chosen as secretary general of the presidency. One year later, he joined the cabinet as Minister of Social affairs. He was among the Socialist politicians who advised President Mitterrand to leave the
European Monetary System in order to continue Socialist economic policy. But in March 1983, Mitterrand listened to his Prime minister
Pierre Mauroy and ratified the change of economic policy. Bérégovoy came round it, and so could become
Minister of Economy and Finance, from 1984 to the 1986 Socialist electoral defeat.
Elected mayor of
Nevers in 1983, and deputy of
Nièvre département in 1986, in the electoral land of Mitterrand, he led his
1988 presidential campaign. After his re-election, at the time of each cabinet reshuffle, his name was mentioned as a possible Prime Minister. In the end, he returned to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. In this function, he symbolized the adaptation of French socialism to the market economy and struck up hearty relations with employers representatives.
After the 1992 regional elections, which were a disaster for the Socialist Party, he was appointed Prime Minister at last. He promised to fight unemployment, economic decline and corruption. During his inaugural speech in the
French National Assembly, he claimed he knew the names of politicians from the right-wing opposition implicated in corruption scandals, causing a great hue and cry. Bérégovoy forced
Bernard Tapie, his Minister of City, to resign in May 1992 after his indictment by the French justice. He thus created the misnamed "
Balladur jurisprudence".
He resigned after the Socialist electoral collapse of the
1993 legislative election.
Death
Pierre Bérégovoy died on
1 May 1993, in
Paris after being transported by helicopter from
Nevers (
Nièvre), where he'd been found an hour earlier, in a coma with two bullets in the head. The second bullet was attributed to a nervous reflex. Police investigators ruled his death as a
suicide, confirming his
bodyguard's deposition, who claimed the former prime minister was with him when he grabbed the guard's gun, while according to the first version of events which appeared in the press relating that Bérégovoy had returned alone to the car and had taken the gun from the glove box. The press also reported that "witnesses heard two shots...." before finding the corpse. The only photo released to the press showed Bérégovoy with a small calibre hole whereas a shot at close range with the bodyguard's 357 magnum would have blown half his head away. There was no investigation after the event which means there was no comparison between the arm allegedly used and the munitions which caused the death.
Most of Bérégovoy's close friends admitted that he'd been depressed ever since he lost the March legislative elections in which his Socialist Party won only 67 out of 577 parliamentary seats. Bérégovoy was also being investigated over a 1 million
Franc interest-free loan by businessman and close friend Roger Patrice-Pelat who had died of a heart attack on 7th March 1989, less than one month after being found guilty in the Péchiney-Triangle affair. Bérégovoy's suicide came on the eve of the opening of a new trial concerning the acquisition of Triangle by Péchiney. His wife expressed some doubt, mainly because he hadn't left a suicide note and that his note pad, which he kept continually in his pocket, had disappeared. Some have suggested that Bérégovoy might actually have been assassinated, suggesting that similarities exist between his death and that of other figures close to Mitterrand including: René Lucet, the head of the Social Security public health system, shot through the head on 4th March 1982; François de Grossouvre, Mitterand's adviser, shot in the head twice (more reflex action) at the Elysée Palace on 7th April 1994; and Pierre-Yves Guézou, responsible for the Elysée phone tapping, found hanged in his home on 12 December 1994.
Funeral
At Bérégovoy's funeral, held at
Nevers in an atmosphere of tension and shock, Mitterrand stated that media pressure in connection with the Pelat scandal was responsible for Bérégovoy's suicide. Targeting the press, he said "the honour of a man was given to dogs" but attributed to Bérégovoy "the greatness of one who chooses his destiny".
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