HAMON, LEO

HAMON, LEO (Goldenberg; 1908–1993), French lawyer and politician. Born in Paris to a family of Polish immigrants, Hamon practiced as a lawyer and following the fall of France in 1940 joined the Resistance. He was a member of the French Provisional Assembly (1944–45) and sat as a senator for the Seine department from 1945 to 1958. Hamon was a founding member of the Movement Republicain Populaire (MRP) but in 1954 joined the pro-Gaullist Jeune République. He continued to support de Gaulle after the latter became president of France in 1958 and in June 1969 was appointed spokesman of the French cabinet. Hamon was a professor of law at the University of Dijon from 1959 to 1960 and for the next four years at the Institut des Hautes Etudes d'Outre-mer. He served as vice chairman of the national television planning committee   from 1965 to 1969 and was later a member of the Research Center in Constitutional Law of Paris 1 University. In June 1972 Hamon was appointed to a special post as secretary of state for "participation," i.e., the process of the participation of workers in the running of factories, in the government of Chaban Delmas, but held the position for only seven weeks, ceasing to be a minister when a reshuffle took place in July. His writings include Le Conseil d'Etat juge du fait (thesis, 1932), De Gaulle dans la République (1958), La France et la guerre de demain… (1967), Une République présidentielle?: institutions et vie politique de la France actuelle (with X. Delcros, 1975), Socialisme et pluralité (1976), Acteurs et données de l'Histoire (1979), Juges de la loi: naissance et rôle d'un contre-pouvoir: le Conseil Constitutionnel (1987), and Lettre au Président de la République nouvellement élu (1988). In 1991 he published his autobiography, Vivre ses choix, and a year later, in collaboration with R. Poznanski, an historical work on the life of Parisian Jews during the first months of the Nazi occupation: Avantles premières grandes rafle: les juifs à Paris sous l'Occupation, juin 1940–avril 1941.