Jean Ybarnegaray
Michel Albert Jean Joseph Ybarnégaray (16 October 1883 – 25 April 1956, Paris) was a French Basque politician and founder of the International Federation of Basque Pelota.
Jean Ybarnegaray was born in Uhart-Cize, Department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, then called Basses Pyrénées, in the northern Basque country. He studied law at the University of Paris and Bordeaux University and practised as a lawyer. He was elected to France's Chamber of Deputies in April 1914.
On the outbreak of the First World War he had to serve in military service. He was wounded and discharged from the army with the Legion of Honour, returning to the Chamber of Deputies, where he criticised the Nivelle Offensive of 1917, the Armistice of 1918, and the Treaty of Versailles.
At the end of January 1934 he became a member of Premier Édouard Daladier's new centre-Left Cabinet. He was at the time a member of the Republican Federation and a 'respectable' member of the Croix de Feu.[1] He then joined the right-wing French Social Party (FSA) headed by François de La Rocque, and was said to be "one of the few members of the Right in the French Chamber of Deputies for whom the Opposition had a personal regard."[2] However, 1938 proved to be a difficult year for Ybarnégaray as he engaged in robust debates in the Chamber arguing that France should honour her commitments and go to the assistance of both Austria and Czechoslovakia if they were threatened by Germany.[3] He was one of those in the Chamber who denounced the German take-over of the rump Czech State in March 1939.[4]
Nevertheless he was a supporter of Franco[5], and upon the arrival of refugees from the northern Basque regions (1937) and Catalan fronts (1939) during the Spanish Civil War, Ybarnegaray took a hostile stance against the exiles, labelling them as "Reds" and turned a cold shoulder to Basque nationalism or any Basque political approach.
Ybarnégaray served in Paul Reynard's Cabinet as Minister of State, from 10 May to 16 June 1940. He then continued to serve the French State as Minister for Veterans and Family in the first Cabinet of Marshal Philippe Pétain[6], during which brief time he established labour camps where the youth of France would live and work.[7] He resigned his office on 6 September 1940, aged 57.
References
- ↑ Werth, Alexander, The Destiny of France, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1937, p.50.
- ↑ Werth, 1937, pps: 196 & 361.
- ↑ Werth, Alexander, France and Munich, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1939, (reprinted by Howard Fertig in New York in 1969), pps:49-52
- ↑ Werth, Alexander, France 1940-1955, Robert hale, London, 1957, p.129.
- ↑ Werth, Alexander, The Twilight of France, Harper Bros., New York, 1942, p.351.
- ↑ Werth, 1957, p.32
- ↑ Werth, 1942, p.358.
- Jolly, Jean (1960). Dictionnaire des Parlementaires français 1889-1940 (French). Presses Universitaires de France. Retrieved on 2007-08-22.
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