Claude Allègre, a shadowy character with small glasses and a round figure, endowed with the high verb of a born juggernaut, died on Saturday January 4 at the age of 87. Renowned geochemist and former socialist minister, he has never been afraid to shock, displaying for example his desire to “degrease the mammoth” of National Education, or directly calling into question the scientific truths about climate change.
Claude Allègre, who suffered a major heart attack in 2013, had since suffered from health problems and his condition deteriorated last September.
“Degrease the mammoth”
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 “degrease the mammoth”immediately alienates 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”.
He supports Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012
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” more “It got worse when my father firmly believed that we had to stand up to the unions” in 2000, his son, Laurent, told AFP.
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 he could be changed. »
Leading figure of the Climatosceptic
In 2009, he was cited for entering government, but was deprived of a job, probably because of his controversial positions on climate change.
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 “denigrations” et “false accusations” uttered 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.
And « esprit original » for François Bayrou
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 “scandalized by the propaganda made from” of this event.
On X, Prime Minister François Bayrou paid tribute to “an original mind, great scientist, man of combat, who did not fear ‘one against all’”
“Even if he was wrong about the climate, he was someone with integrity”underlines his son who hopes that he “not only that will remain of him” . “The problem is that he was very stubborn, he was not in the consensus, in the agreed side. »