Died on Saturday at the age of 87, Claude Allègre, renowned geochemist and former socialist minister, was never afraid to shock, displaying his desire to “slim down the mammoth” of National Education and directly calling into question the scientific truths on climate change.
A shadowy character with small glasses and a round silhouette, endowed with the high words of a born juggernaut, this scientist was a media figure, known to the general public since his time in government between 1997 and 2000.
Member of the PS since 1973, long-time friend and advisor to Lionel Jospin, he became his Minister of National Education, Research and Technology. A minister determined to reform.
But one of his first outbursts, the one where he proclaims his ambition to “slim down the mammoth”, immediately alienates the teachers. An opposition which will continue to grow and will force him to surrender his portfolio in March 2000.
Claude Allègre, born on March 31, 1937 to a father who was a biology professor and a mother who was a schoolteacher, had difficulty digesting this forced departure, then attacking the teachers’ union, the SNES, described as “Stalinist”.
This specialist in Earth sciences, former director of the Physical Institute of the Globe of Paris (1976-1986) and chairman of the board of directors of the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (1992-1997), subsequently continued to encourage controversies, both political and scientific.
Lionel Jospin, Laurent Fabius, Ségolène Royal… This disappointed socialist multiplies the invectives aimed at his former comrades.
With Lionel Jospin, “they were very close, accomplices, they had a fairly close relationship” but “it got worse when my father firmly believed that we had to stand up to the unions” in 2000, underlines to AFP his son Laurent.
In 2007, the break was complete and the man nicknamed Vulcano by some close friends turned to Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he supported again during the presidential election in 2012.
“If he rallied behind Sarkozy, it was because he saw that there was someone who really wanted to change things,” underlines his son. “Deep down he had a naive side, he wanted to change people’s lives. He believed in Man and thought that we could change him.”
In 2009, he was cited for entering government, but was deprived of a job, probably because of his controversial positions on climate change.
– Climate skeptic –
The geochemist, member of the Academy of Sciences and full of French and international recognition (CNRS gold medal, Crafoord prize in 1986), is then the leading figure in France of climate skepticism, this movement which calls into question the conclusions climate specialists from the IPCC.
Ulcerated by the attacks relayed by the ex-minister in his best-seller, “The Climate Imposture”, more than 600 climatologists wrote in the spring of 2010 to their supervisory minister to denounce the “denigration” and “false accusations” made by a non-climate scientist.
The Academy of Sciences, after tense debates behind closed doors, will refute Claude Allègre’s theses at the end of 2010.
This does not prevent the man with his ever-alert words from returning to the field of ecology only a year later by launching a foundation. This organization certainly refrained from openly addressing the climate issue but promoted technological innovation and “scientific ecology” with the support of several Nobel Prize winners, such as the physicist Albert Fert or the immunologist Jules Hoffmann.
Loving nothing less than swimming against the tide, the man, who had already distinguished himself in the past by questioning the danger of asbestos, is also not afraid to defend nuclear power immediately after the accident of Fukushima in 2011, saying he was “scandalized by the propaganda made from” this event.
In 2013, he suffered a heart attack while participating in a scientific conference in Chile.
On
“Even if he was wrong about the climate, he was someone with integrity,” underlines his son who hopes that “that will not only remain of him.” “The problem is that he was very stubborn, he was not in the consensus, in the agreed side.”
