He was a figure of the RPR and a traveling companion of Jacques Chirac. Former minister and deputy Bernard Pons is dead, his family announced to AFP on Wednesday April 27. He was 95 years old. During his long political career, he held key positions in the Gaullist party and participated in several governments.
A general practitioner by training, Bernard Pons will have spent more than twenty-seven years as a deputy, for Lot, Essonne and then Paris. Between 1988 and 1995, he headed the RPR’s parliamentary group in the National Assembly. A party that he had helped to found, and of which he had been the secretary general between 1979 and 1984, when Jacques Chirac led it.
In government, he was Secretary of State to the Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories, and finally Minister of Equipment, Housing, Transport and Tourism. Very critical of Valéry Giscard-d’Estaing, he did not participate in the executive during his seven-year term.
His time at the Ministry of Overseas was tainted by the massacre in the Ouvéa cave in New Caledonia, between the two rounds of the 1988 presidential election: the ordered assault against the separatist hostage takers had 21 dead, 19 Kanaks and 2 soldiers.
His funeral will take place Monday in Aigues-Mortes (Gard), where he lived, his family announced. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to him on Twitter.
The disappearance of Bernard Pons marks the end of an era. That of the great moments of companionship, of epic politics, of triumphant Gaullism. I loved this man who gave so much to his political family. Warmest and loving thoughts for his own.NS
— Nicolas Sarkozy (@NicolasSarkozy) April 27, 2022