Former senator and member of the European Parliament Henri Weber, one of the tutelary figures of May 68 who became part of the Socialist Party, died at the age of 75 on Sunday from coronavirus.
Son of Polish Jews born on June 23, 1944 in Leninabad in the USSR (today Khodjent in Tajikistan), he died in Avignon, “following the Covid-19, surrounded by his wife, Fabienne Servan-Schreiber, and their children, “his family said in a statement.
“68 was a great democratic and liberal push”
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 50 years later. “It is also a great hedonistic push, against puritanism and rigorist morality,” he added.
“Henri Weber was one of these fertile memories of the left, he knew its history, down to the smallest details,” said Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the Socialist Party. “But he did not dream of a golden age to be found, he was in the constant search for new solutions. In recent months, he had been engaged in the work of renovating partisan forms. He was tireless. Passionate “Exciting. The Socialist Party is losing an incisive spirit this evening which has often lit our way. Our sadness is immense.”
Joined the PS in the 80s
Member of the political bureau of the LCR, Mr. 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 National Assembly.
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 served two terms 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, Mr. Weber played an important role in the ideological structuring party.
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 government left. The PS has no chance of reimposing itself”.
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