2024-01-11 18:46:48
Louis Le Pensec, in Paris, June 30, 1988. FREDERIC REGLAIN / GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES
From the height of 1.90 m, “Great Louis” did not go unnoticed, even if he did not want to put himself forward. Minister in half a dozen governments between 1981 and 1998, socialist deputy for almost a quarter of a century, senator for a decade, this close friend of Michel Rocard embodied Breton socialism with pride and rigor. Louis Le Pensec died on January 10, two days after reaching the age of 87. In 1981, he was the first full-time Minister of the Sea in Pierre Mauroy’s team and had actively participated, as Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories (DOM-TOM), in 1988, in the negotiation of the Matignon agreements on New Caledonia.
Louis Le Pensec was born in 1937, in Mellac (Finistère), and he shared the life of a family of eight children in a house with a single dirt room. Initially a day laborer, his father worked as a laborer at the Mauduit paper mills and he was a union member of the CGT, which, he would say, shaped his “social and political awareness”. He dreamed of becoming a carpenter and studied at the technical college of Quimperlé but, after obtaining his baccalaureate, his teachers encouraged him to continue his studies.
At the University of Rennes then in Paris, he obtained his degrees in literature and political economy and a diploma from the Institute of Business Administration. Member of the UNEF student union, he did an internship in Algeria. Campaigning for its independence and against torture, he is involved in union and association action. He meets Michel Rocard in meetings of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU).
Mayor of Mellac
In 1963, Louis Le Pensec married Colette Le Guilcher, a woman from Paimpol with whom he had a son, Olivier. The same year, he joined the aircraft manufacturing company Snecma as a management assistant before joining, from 1966 to 1970, the management of the heavy goods vehicle manufacturer Saviem. A journey of“a true republican meritocracy”, greeted Emmanuel Macron. In Paris, he frequented the Red Bonnets Club, chaired by Charles Hernu, who belonged to François Mitterrand’s Convention of Republican Institutions. Absent at the Epinay congress, which refounded the Socialist Party, in June 1971, he joined the PS and remained loyal to it until the end.
In March 1971, at the head of a left-wing union list, Louis Le Pensec was elected mayor of Mellac, a position he held continuously until 1997. In March 1973, he became the only deputy of left of Finistère. Never defeated, he sat in the National Assembly, outside of the periods when he was minister, until 1997.
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