Emile Zinsou
| Émile Derlin Henri Zinsou | |
|---|---|
| President of Dahomey | |
|
In office 17 July 1968 – 10 December 1969 |
|
| Preceded by | Alphonse Amadou Alley |
| Succeeded by | Iropa Maurice Kouandété |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
23 March 1918 Ouidah, Dahomey |
| Died | 28 July 2016 (aged 98) Cotonou, Benin |
| Profession | Politician, physician |
Émile Derlin Zinsou (23 March 1918 – 28 July 2016) was a Beninese politician and physician who was the President of Dahomey (now Benin) from 17 July 1968 until 10 December 1969, supported by the military regime that took power in 1967. Zinsou was present at the signing of the treaty that formed the African Union on 12 July 2000 in Togo.
Zinsou was born in Ouidah on 23 March 1918. He was educated at Porto Novo and the Ecole William Ponty in Senegal. He studied medicine at the Dakar Medical College and qualified as a doctor. Zinsou was a physician in the French army from 1939 to 1940. Afterwards he operated a private practice and began to become involved in colonial politics.
Zinsou was one of the founders of Dahomey's first political party, the Union Progressiste Dahoméenne (UPD). He was an assistant to Sourou-Migan Apithy in 1945 and was a deputy to the French National Assembly. From 1947 to 1953 he was vice president of the Assembly to the French Union. During this time the UPD splintered into ethnic/regional factions led by Apithy, Hubert Maga, and Justin Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin. Zinsou merged the remainder of the UPD with Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin's Bloc Populaire Africain to form the Union Démocratique Dahoméenne.
He served in the French senate from 1955 to 1958, joining the Independents d'Outre-Mer. While a senator, Zinsou developed a close bond with future President of Senegal Léopold Sédar Senghor. Zinsou was a deputy to Dahomey's Territorial (later National) Assembly and was Minister of Commerce during the "loi-cadre" liberalization period of 1958 to 1959. He did not want to see the breakup of France's African colonies after independence and was the secretary of the Dakar-based Parti du Regroupement Africain (PRA). Zinsou broke with Apithy in 1959 after Apithy backed out of the idea of a Mali Federation, one of the PRA's chief proposals.
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