Pompidou, Georges Jean Raymond, << pohm pee DOO, zhawrzh zhahn ray MAWN >> (1911-1974), served as president of France from 1969 until his death in 1974. He was elected after the resignation of President Charles de Gaulle. Pompidou also served as premier, or prime minister, of France from 1962 to 1968. Pompidou was a member of the Union of Democrats for the Republic, a political party that supported de Gaulle.
As premier, and later as president, Pompidou worked to modernize France. He encouraged the development of the nation’s network of high-speed trains (called trains à grande vitesse, or TGV). In Paris, the French capital, he commissioned the building of a unique, modern library and museum called the Centre Beaubourg (renamed the Centre Georges Pompidou after his death). He ordered the city’s ancient Les Halles markets to be torn down and replaced with a modern shopping area called the Forum des Halles. He also began the building of the Montparnasse Tower—the only skyscraper in central Paris—and an expressway along the right bank of the Seine River. Pompidou also helped resolve the student uprising of 1968 and approved the entry of the United Kingdom into the European Community in 1971.
Pompidou began his political career in 1944 as an adviser to de Gaulle, then a general head of the provisional (temporary) government in France. In 1946, Pompidou was appointed to the Council of State, a judicial and advisory body. He resigned in 1954 and entered private business. After de Gaulle was named premier in 1958, Pompidou resumed his political career as director of the general’s personal staff. Later that year, de Gaulle became president. He appointed Pompidou to the Constitutional Council, which decides the legality of legislation. De Gaulle appointed Pompidou premier in 1962 but did not reappoint him after the parliamentary elections of 1968. Pompidou was elected to the National Assembly in 1967 and 1968.
Pompidou was born on July 5, 1911, in Montboudif, a village in central France. He was the son of a schoolteacher and the grandson of a peasant. He was a professor of literature before entering politics. Pompidou died of cancer on April 2, 1974.
