Henri Weber in 2010. – FOAM / POOL / SIPA
Former senator and MEP Henri Weber, one of the tutelary figures of May 68 who became a manager of the socialist party, died at the age of 75 on Sunday coronavirus, his family announced to AFP.
Son of Polish Jews born on June 23, 1944 in Leninabad in the USSR (today Khodjent in Tajikistan), Henri Weber died in Avignon, “following the Covid-19, surrounded by his wife, Fabienne Servan-Schreiber, and of their children, “said his family in a statement.
One of the co-founders of the Revolutionary Communist League
This academic, doctor and teacher in political philosophy, is one of the co-founders of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) in 1969, after having been a member of the Communist Youth and having created, alongside Alain Krivine, the Communist Youth revolutionaries in 1965.
He emerged during the May 1968 demonstrations, becoming one of the faces of the protest, but also one of its theorists. He later published several books on the events, but also reflections on the left. The movement of “68 was a great democratic and liberal push – in the political and cultural sense of the term: one attacks all discriminations”, he confided to the AFP 50 years later. “It is also a great hedonistic push, against puritanism and rigorist morality,” he added.
“Henri Weber was one of those fertile memories of the left, he knew the history, down to the smallest details,” said Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the PS, to the AFP. “But he did not dream of a golden age to rediscover, he was in the constant search for new solutions.” “In recent months, he has been engaged in the renovation of partisan forms. He was tireless. Passionate. Exciting. The Socialist Party is losing an incisive spirit this evening which has often lit our path. Our sadness is immense, ”he continued.
“Going above and beyond to rebuild a government left”
“It is one of the legends of the left that is leaving and his disappearance fills me with great sadness”, reacted to AFP Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, also from the far left before d ‘Join Henriiste as Socialist Party in 1986. Because, member of the political bureau of the LCR, Henri Weber joined the PS in the mid-1980s and entered in 1988 as technical advisor to the cabinet of Laurent Fabius as President of the Assembly national.
In 1988 he won his first term as deputy mayor in Saint-Denis, then was elected municipal councilor for Dieppe (Seine-Maritime) from 1995 to 2001 and as senator for Seine-Maritime from 1995 to 2004. This convinced European also carried out two mandates in the Strasbourg Parliament, from 2004 to 2014.
Deputy National Secretary of the PS, responsible for globalization, member of the National Council of the PS, member of the scientific orientation council of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation of which he was still an associate expert, Henri Weber played an important role in the ideological structuring of the left. In December, commenting on the loss of influence of the PS, he estimated that “after the municipal elections, it will be necessary to go beyond to rebuild a left of government. The PS has no chance of reimposing itself “.
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