Christian Fouchet

Christian Fouchet

Christian Fouchet (17 November 1911 – 11 August 1974) was a French politician.

He was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines. He was a graduate of the Ecole des sciences politiques.

After Marshal Petain's request for an armistice with Nazi Germany on 17 June 1940, Fouchet boarded a London-bound British airplane to offer his services to General Charles de Gaulle and the Free French forces. His missions primarily involved liaison work between the Free French in London and the resistance movement in France.

Fouchet received his first diplomatic assignment in 1944, when he was made a secretary of the French embassy in Moscow. In 1945 he represented de Gaulle's provisional government in Poland. He subsequently served as Consul General in India until 1947.

In 1954 Fouchet began a two-year term as Minister for Moroccan and Tunisian Affairs in the government of Pierre Mendès France. He was the French ambassador to Denmark from 1958 to 1962.

He was the French Minister of National Education from 28 November 1962 to 6 April 1967. He was the colonial head of Algeria from 19 March 1962 to 3 July 1962. He was the French Minister of the Interior from 6 April 1967 to 31 May 1968.

He is the father of the French novelist Lorraine Fouchet.

Fouchet held the Legion of Honour as a chevalier in 1946 and as a commandeur in 1961, the Croix de Guerre, the Croix de la Valeur Militaire, the Croix of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Medal of the Resistance and the Medal of Free France.