Gaston Defferre
| Gaston Defferre | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Mayor of Marseille | |
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In office 1953–1986 |
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| Preceded by | Michel Carlini |
| Succeeded by | Jean-Victor Cordonnier |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
14 September 1910 Marsillargues, France |
| Died | 7 May 1986 (aged 75) Marseille, France |
| Political party |
French Section of the Workers' International (1930–1969) Socialist Party (1969–1986) |
Gaston Defferre (14 September 1910 – 7 May 1986) was a French Socialist politician.
Lawyer and member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) political party, he was a member of the Brutus Network, a Resistance Socialist group during World War II. A long-standing member of the National Assembly (1945–1958, 1962–1986) and member of the Senate (1959–1962), he also served for many years as mayor of Marseille (1944–1945, 1953–1986). He was a formidable political force in the South-East, where he owned the major centre-left newspaper Le Provençal (which he co-founded at the Liberation) and later acquired the right-wing daily Le Méridional.
Defferre served as Merchant Marine Minister (1950–1952), then Overseas Minister (1956–1957), and laid the groundwork for the end of French colonialism in sub-Saharan Africa.
In his region, he faced a strong French Communist Party (PCF) with which he was frequently in conflict. As Mayor he relied on the support of the non-Gaullist center-right in the municipal assembly. In the same way, he advocated a national alliance between the SFIO and the Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP). Before the 1965 presidential election, L'Express published an identikit of the best center-left candidate under the name of "Mister X". It corresponded with Defferre's profile (L'Express co-founder Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber being a well known advocate of a Third Force alliance of socialists, Christian democrats and Radicals). But, failing to create an SFIO-MRP-Radical Party federation, he gave way to François Mitterrand, whose preferred strategy for the Socialists was the formation of a left-wing coalition including the PCF.
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