Robert Boulin
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Robert Boulin (20 July 1920 – 30 October 1979) was a French politician who served as Minister of Labour in the French Cabinet and was at the centre of a major real-estate scandal that ended only with his death in mysterious circumstances. At the time of his death he was the longest serving minister in post-revolution French history; only
Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Vers ...
's Colbert served longer.


Career until 1978

Boulin was born in Villandraut, Gironde. A
Gaullist Gaullism (french: link=no, Gaullisme) is a French political stance based on the thought and action of World War II French Resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who would become the founding President of the Fifth French Republic. De Gaulle withd ...
who joined the
Free French Free France (french: France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general , Free France was established as a government-in-exile ...
movement in 1940, and rose to lead the movement in
Navarre Navarre (; es, Navarra ; eu, Nafarroa ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre ( es, Comunidad Foral de Navarra, links=no ; eu, Nafarroako Foru Komunitatea, links=no ), is a foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, ...
– an achievement for which he was awarded the
Croix de Guerre The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...
– Boulin was known for his moderation; the courtesy with which he treated his political opponents led to a reputation as a skilled negotiator. Boulin's first ministerial position was as refugee minister in 1961, when France was winding up the Algerian war preparing to repatriate more than a million French settlers. Boulin served in the three governments following the establishment of the Fifth Republic in nine different posts; he occupied ministerial posts for fifteen years. His only break in ministerial service came from 1973 to 1976, when he was sidelined for having worked for Chaban-Delmas against
Valéry Giscard The French name Valery () is a male given name or surname of Germanic origin ''Walaric'' (see Walric of Leuconay), that has often been confused in modern times with the Latin name '' Valerius''—that explains the variant spelling Valéry (). The ...
in the presidential elections.


Accusations in the Press

In 1979, when he was being tipped as a successor to the unpopular
Raymond Barre Raymond Octave Joseph Barre (; 12 April 192425 August 2007) was a French centre-right politician and economist. He was a Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs under three presidents (Rey, ...
as
Prime Minister of France The prime minister of France (french: link=no, Premier ministre français), officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and the leader of the Council of Ministers. The prime minister ...
, the satirical and investigative weekly ''
Le Canard enchaîné (; English: "The Chained Duck" or "The Chained Paper", as is French slang meaning "newspaper") is a satirical weekly newspaper in France. Its headquarters is in Paris. Founded in 1915 during World War I, it features investigative journalism a ...
'' began to publish a series of articles that it said revealed Boulin had taken undue advantage of his position to obtain favourable terms on a series of real estate deals in the
French Riviera The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...
. The paper printed photographs of letters on official ministry letterhead that purported to show that Boulin had tried to get government representatives in the region to authorize construction of 26 houses in an area where buildings were barred for environmental reasons, and that Boulin tried to get Henri Tournet, the property developer at the center of the scandal, promoted to the Legion of Honor. Further, according to the ''Le Canard enchaîné'', Tournet sold Boulin near
Ramatuelle Ramatuelle (; Provençal: ''Ramatuela'') is a commune in the Var department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France. In 2016, it had a population of 2,077. History Ramatuelle lies near St-Tropez, Sainte-Maxime and Ga ...
in 1974 that the developer had already sold to someone else. Boulin said he knew nothing of the dispute until 1978, but a letter quoted by the ''Canard'' seemed to indicate that the minister knew beforehand. The paper further claimed that Boulin had paid $8,000 for the land, a third of what the other buyer had paid a year earlier, and was able to get a building permit – within a month, which was unusual – in a wooded area where building had previously not taken place.


Death and controversy

On 29 October 1979, Boulin had lunch with his son Bertrand, and subsequently disappeared. Police found his body on the morning of 30 October in a pond in the forest of Rambouillet. Next to his car, which was parked nearby, was an empty container of barbiturates. In the car were envelopes addressed to Boulin's wife and to his colleagues at the Labor Ministry. Before the contents of the envelopes were known, top governmental leaders publicly accused ''Le Canard enchaîné'' of being morally responsible for Boulin's death, and there were broad hints the government might use the reaction to the Boulin death to seek stricter libel laws, as was done in the 1930s after the suicide of
Roger Salengro Roger Henri Charles Salengro (30 May 1890, in Lille – 18 November 1936, in Lille) was a French politician. He achieved fame as Minister of the Interior during the Popular Front government in 1936. He committed suicide a few months after taking ...
, the Socialist minister in
Léon Blum André Léon Blum (; 9 April 1872 – 30 March 1950) was a French socialist politician and three-time Prime Minister. As a Jew, he was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century. He was a disciple of French Socialist le ...
's
Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...
government, in 1936. Salengro was widely believed to have been hounded by Fascist weeklies. Jacques Chaban-Delmas, then President of the
National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...
, who had been politically identified with Boulin for many years, told a special memorial session of the assembly that it should "draw the lessons of this tragedy, of this assassination." After meeting with President
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing Valéry René Marie Georges Giscard d'Estaing (, , ; 2 February 19262 December 2020), also known as Giscard or VGE, was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981. After serving as Minister of Finance under prime ...
, Prime Minister Barre called for "meditation upon the consequences of certain ignominies", and spoke of "a baseness." The president joined in the criticism: Boulin, said Giscard, "was unable to resist the campaign of harassment he was subjected to. Public opinion should severely condemn any other similar campaigns." The release of letters found in his car and that he had mailed from a Paris suburb on the day of his death threw fuel on the flames of controversy, as he apparently posthumously accused his fellow Gaullists, especially Justice Minister
Alain Peyrefitte Alain Peyrefitte (; 26 August 1925 – 27 November 1999) was a French scholar and politician. He was a confidant of Charles de Gaulle and had a long career in public service, serving as a diplomat in Germany and Poland. Peyrefitte is remembered ...
of "obvious collusion" with those who were out to destroy him, whom he named as Henri Tournet, an "ambitious" investigating magistrate and "certain political circles from which my own political friends are, alas, not excluded" and implied that the then parliamentary majority was, in Boulin's phrase, "a basket of crabs." In a separate note to the police, Boulin wrote "I have decided to drown myself in a lake in the forest, of Rambouillet, where I enjoyed riding horseback." Before his death, Boulin also wrote letters to
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, ''
Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'', his wife Collette, and to Chaban-Delmas. In the version published by Agence France-Presse, he accused a young Normandy judge of leaking details of the real estate case in an effort to seek personal publicity, and attacked the Minister of Justice: "this leaking of the secrets of the investigation failed to move a justice minister more concerned about his career than about the smooth functioning of justice." Boulin alleged that the judge let the real estate operator go free after serving a month in jail in exchange for his cooperation in implicating the labor minister. The land agent, Henri Tournet, was "blackmailing" Boulin by trying to make it appear, untruthfully, that he knew beforehand that a building lot he bought from him on the French Riviera belonged to someone else, Boulin claimed. Boulin said that upon being freed from prison, Tournet went to ''Le Monde'' and ''Le Canard enchaîné'', "whose basic motivation is maliciousness."


Investigation

Shortly after his death, the Boulin family declared that they did not accept the verdict of suicide and began waging a campaign in the press and the courts to re-open the case, which they believed was murder. On 22 October 1983, his body was ordered to be exhumed for an additional autopsy. The irregularities of the case were widely covered: that the lake in which he allegedly drowned was apparently nowhere more than deep; that Boulin's face had been badly battered and a cheek bone fractured, which went unmentioned in the official autopsy report; that the local doctor who signed the certificate was only allowed a hurried glimpse of the body which had already been transferred, on orders by high officials, to a waiting helicopter; that the jars containing Mr Boulin's lungs, necessary to confirm a death by drowning, disappeared mysteriously after someone broke into the laboratory fridge. At a press conference on 17 January 1984, the family accused the Versailles prosecutor of "wanting to hide the real cause of the death of Robert Boulin" and of "shielding the assassins from the law". The family was then prosecuted by the minister for justice for defaming a magistrate, and fined 800 francs; they were pardoned personally by
François Mitterrand François Marie Adrien Maurice Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was President of France, serving under that position from 1981 to 1995, the longest time in office in the history of France. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, he ...
on his ascension to the Presidency a few weeks later. In September 1991, the Paris Public Prosecutor announced that he was closing the dossier opened in 1983; the family continued to accuse the Gaullist party of a cover-up, and possible implication in Boulin's death itself. The issue was re-ignited in January 2002 by a series of investigations televised on
Canal Plus Canal+ (Canal Plus, , meaning 'Channel Plus'; sometimes abbreviated C+ or Canal) is a French premium television channel launched in 1984. It is 100% owned by the Groupe Canal+, which in turn is owned by Vivendi. The channel broadcasts several ki ...
, in which Juliette Garrat, the doctor who performed the autopsy, said she was now sure that Mr Boulin's death was a "murder disguised as suicide" and the substitute prosecutor at the time also came forward to say "orders were given" by the authorities to stick to the verdict of suicide. On 21 June 2007, shortly after
Jacques Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, , ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988, as well as Ma ...
, also a Gaullist, handed over power to
Nicolas Sarkozy Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012. Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...
, the Paris Public Prosecutor met with Boulin's daughter, Fabienne Burgeat, and announced that he was considering re-opening the investigation as "new evidence" had come to light.


Popular culture

Boulin was portrayed by
François Berléand François Berléand (; born 22 April 1952) is a French actor. He plays Gilles Triquet, the officer manager and equivalent of David Brent in ''Le Bureau'', the French version of ''The Office'', produced by Canal+. He also appeared in the 2002 fil ...
in the 2013 TV movie ''Crime D'Etat'' (lit. ''Crime of State'') directed by Pierre Aknine.


References

*"Inside Story: The Boulin dossier", by Peter Lennon, ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', 21 September 1991 *"Mystery of Minister's Suicide", by Susan Bell, ''
The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its par ...
'', 16 January 2002 *"Suicide's Notes Rock France", by Ronald Koven, ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', 1 November 1979 *"French Minister, Named in Scandal, Apparent Suicide", by Ronald Koven, ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', 31 October 1979 *"Body of minister to be exhumed",
Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...
, 22 October 1983 {{DEFAULTSORT:Boulin, Robert 1920 births 1979 deaths People from Gironde Politicians from Nouvelle-Aquitaine National Centre of Social Republicans politicians Union for the New Republic politicians Union of Democrats for the Republic politicians Rally for the Republic politicians French Ministers of Agriculture French Ministers of Budget French Ministers of Health French Ministers of Civil Service Deputies of the 1st National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic Deputies of the 2nd National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic Deputies of the 3rd National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic Deputies of the 4th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic Deputies of the 5th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic Deputies of the 6th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic French Resistance members Death conspiracy theories