Among the non-standard deputies or those who have left a special place in the history of parliament, there are two “soldier deputies”. There was no question for them of claiming a special status. Although deputies, they went to war in 1914. This is the case of Jules Ferry’s nephew, Abel Ferry, and Albert Lebrun. The first was a deputy for the Vosges in 1914, he was even appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in June; it is he who also receives Jean Jaurès a few hours before his assassination (Jaurès had requested an audience with the President of the Council, who had asked Ferry to receive him). On the day of the declaration of war, August 3, 1914, Abel Ferry went up to join the 166th infantry regiment in Verdun. He goes there by car, his wife drives, and the couple embarks another deputy joining the front, Albert Lebrun, deputy of Meurthe-et-Moselle, formerly the youngest deputy of France (in 1900) and who will be 18 years older later President of the Republic. Abel Ferry will die on the front, a few weeks before the armistice, in September 1918.
Lorraine has also known many legislative candidates, elected or defeated, called “parachuted”. The Marseillais and famous Companion of the Liberation, Jacques Baumel, began his career as a deputy in Moselle in 1945, as did Abbé Pierre, also a member of the Resistance, originally from Lyon and parachuted into Meurthe-et-Moselle. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Vosges were to see a few other parachutists land in the legislative elections, Christian Poncelet arrived from the Ardennes in the early 1960s, Philippe Séguin and Christian Pierret came from Paris, they were all three elected deputies and would later become ministers. Christian Pierret, during his parachuting in 1978 faces another parachuted, sent by President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, it is Lionel Stoléru, Secretary of State for the Condition of manual workers. In the famous parachute drops, the inhabitants of Nancy experienced that of JJSS, Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, boss of the Express, elected to general surprise during a partial legislative, facing a personality yet very established and highly esteemed, Roger Souchal, who had made the imprudence to resign (certain that he would be re-elected) to show his dissatisfaction on the route of the A4, too close to Metz and too far from Nancy. The Vosges, in the 2010s will witness a new high-profile parachute drop, that of Jack Lang. A parachuting which was not really one, Jack Lang being from the Vosges (he was born in Mirecourt), yes but here he is, he had gone elsewhere in the meantime, had already been elected deputy of Loir-et-Cher and Pas-de-Calais… Bad luck, like Lionel Stoléru thirty years earlier in the same constituency, Jack Lang’s parachute was in fact an ejection seat.
