Maurice Couve de Murville

Maurice Couve de Murville began as an inspector of finances and worked on international financial questions before becoming a diplomat. Under Vichy he directed external finance and exchange matters and participated in armistice negotiations. He left for North Africa in March 1943, first joining General Giraud and then serving as finance commissioner in the French Committee of National Liberation. ¹

After the war he directed political affairs at the foreign ministry and represented France in Egypt, at NATO, in Washington, and in Bonn. His Washington discussions included preparations for the 1955 Geneva foreign ministers' conference. At an August meeting with John Foster Dulles and British ambassador Roger Makins, he supported consulting NATO before developing European security proposals and raised the alliance's military planning procedures. ^{1, 2}

De Gaulle appointed him foreign minister in June 1958. He held the office for ten years, briefly moved to the finance ministry after the upheaval of May 1968, and became prime minister that July. His government left office after de Gaulle's resignation and Georges Pompidou's election in 1969. ¹

Couve de Murville later served in the National Assembly and Senate. He chaired the Assembly's foreign affairs committee and continued to defend a policy of French independence, including opposition to the Maastricht Treaty and to French participation in the 1991 Gulf War. ¹