Word: debre
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Alexandre insists that he has carefully and completely verified his book by double-checking each quote with two or more sources. Says Alexandre, who is a distant relative by marriage to Gaullist Defense Minister Michel Debré: "I regretfully had to leave out a great many marvelous bon mots of the general because I wasn't a hundred percent certain of them." He adds that Pompidou, who invited him to the Elysée Palace for an amiable 90-minute talk upon receiving a complimentary copy of the book, "did not deny or question the authenticity...
Remember how the French reluctantly confirmed that deal for the sale of some jet aircraft, maybe 15 or so, to Libya's new pro-Nasser regime? How Defense Minister Michel Debré later admitted that about 50 Mirage 5 ground-attack planes would actually be sold, but neglected to mention that 30 Mirage IIIE fighter-bombers and 20 Mirage III trainers were also included? How Debré grudgingly revealed two weeks ago that around 100 jets, rather than 50, were involved after all? And how, finally. Premier Jacques Chaban-Delmas soberly declared: "Our compatriots can be sure that...
...returned to the Gaullist fold three years later. As Foreign Minister, he is expected not to initiate any drastic changes in France's basic policy, but rather to give it a Pompidoulian cast. That is, as one diplomat suggested, "instead of the shouted non" like that of Debré, "Schumann's non will be far more gentle and perhaps even negotiable...
...panoply of the inaugural could not conceal the anxieties and tensions that gnaw at the Gaullist party. Arriving late at the Elysée, Michel Debré, one of De Gaulle's most loyal ministers, seemed agitated. Former Culture Minister Andre Malraux, the ideologue of Gaullism, also seemed nervous, bringing his left hand to his mouth as if to bite his nails. Outgoing Premier Maurice Couve de Murville looked even more icy and dour than usual. The old Gaullist veterans remember all too well that in 1953, the last time De Gaulle huffily retired from French politics, the party...
...Gaullist government was, said a Minister, "glacial." Poher's aides gaily replied that if the Ministers had found the meeting frosty, Poher had warmly enjoyed himself. The interim President was not amused, however, when a few hours later news agencies carried the remarks of Foreign Minister Michel Debré made at the meeting, that "France suffered a defeat last Sunday." Poher's office issued a sharp rebuke, noting that Ministers were not authorized to disclose the Cabinet's secret deliberations...