Éric Freysselinard is prefect of Meurthe-et-Moselle and former chief of staff to Patrick Devedjian. He notably published Albert Lebrun, the last president of the Third Republic (Belin, 2013).
At the heart of this health crisis, Patrick Devedjian, former minister and president of the Hauts-de-Seine departmental council, had the terrible privilege of being the first politician to die from Covid 19. It is with great sadness that I learned of his death, while I was his close collaborator in the ministry of local communities.
Patrick Devedjian was nourished by the obsidional complex which always made him fear for the Christians of the East.Son of Roland Devedjian, Armenian engineer born in Turkey, he was marked from his childhood by the genocide which had annihilated a large part of his family. He had kept a deep wound, loving with passion the Byzantine civilization, nourished by the obsidional complex which always made him fear for the Christians of the East. He had also built up a visceral distrust of the Leviathan state, which made him prefer local liberties and led him to fight the USSR, at a time when this regime still aroused the admiration of part of the French intellectuals.
After studying at Assas and Sciences Po, he joined the UDR then the RPR and narrowly snatched from the Communists the town hall of Antony in 1983, with his wife Sophie who played a big role in his local political action and who was the daughter of Claude Vanbremeersch, former Chief of the Defense Staff.
He gladly led his close team, got into the background and negotiated the major arbitration issues himself.Deeply liberal, almost libertarian, passionately Girondist, convinced European, hostile to all oppressive regimes, he launched himself into legislative and national politics. Minister delegate for local liberties, he carried with passion the Act II of decentralization, playing with all the means to get his ideas across, always in the direction of more freedom for local communities. He fought some great battles like the decentralization of the RSA or even the liberalization of the powers of attorney, always in the direction of freedom. He was proud to have been able to incorporate into the Constitution the principle of the decentralized organization of France. It was then that I came into contact with him, arguing in favor of his theses, always fighting at heart.
Proud of his ministerial stripes, which are the consecration of any politician, he gladly animated his close team, entered into the background of the files and himself negotiated the major subjects of arbitration with Nicolas Sarkozy, his colleague from Hauts- de-Seine and minister responsible, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Prime Minister, and Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic. At the Ministry of Industry, he was then able, with the investment plan, to help restore freedoms to the economic world which he trusted. Finally, as a lawyer, he would have dreamed of becoming a keeper of the seals and, in this area too, of defending individual freedoms.
At the Hauts-de-Seine departmental council, he had, after Antony's town hall, shown his qualities as a man of projects and an organizer. Master at home, with a beautiful ambition for a territory that he wanted to carry to the highest, he had initiated and carried with legitimate pride the project of Musical scene on the island of Billancourt and obtained the decentralization of the Public Establishment of Paris-La Défense.
A page turns and we are orphans.Sometimes shady, suspicious, always a step ahead, he saw far, with a real strategic vision of politics, while being a master in the art of political and electoral tactics. Fearsome swashbuckler, he also had a sense of formula, with a sometimes creaky humor, as when he had asked that "the opening advocated by Nicolas Sarkozy go to the Sarkozysts" .
He was a man of culture, of great finesse, endearing. A lover of the arts, he had a predilection for opera, painting and everything related to Italian culture. He kept his Armenian wound in his heart, which made all the richness and originality of his personality.
He is one of the most brilliant politicians of his generation who leaves us, intensely devoted to the public good. A page turns and we are orphans. I think of his wife Sophie, his four sons and his ten grandchildren who are going through a terrible ordeal. I salute his memory, watchtower of freedom, which must always question us.
