Jacques Soustelle

Jacques Soustelle (born Feb. 3, 1912, Montpellier, Fr.—died Aug. 7, 1990, Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a French anthropologist and politician who was instrumental in the return to power of General Charles de Gaulle in 1958 but afterward broke with de Gaulle over the issue of Algeria.

The son of a railway worker, Soustelle studied at the École Normale Supérieure and received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1937. He took part in several anthropological missions to Mexico (1932–39), became assistant director of the Museum of Man in Paris (1937–39), and was a professor at the Collège de France and the Colonial School (1938–39).

Beginning as a strong leftist, Soustelle in 1938 became secretary-general of the Vigilance Committee of Antifascist Intellectuals. After the fall of France to Germany in 1940, he joined the Free French forces of General de Gaulle in London. He was Free French commissioner of information (1942) and directed intelligence operations in Algiers (1943–44).

A member of the Constituent Assembly of 1945–46, Soustelle was successively minister of information and minister of colonies during 1945 in the government headed by de Gaulle. As secretary-general (1947–52) of de Gaulle’s Rally of the French People, he led the party in the National Assembly after his election in 1951. Premier Pierre Mendès-France appointed him governor-general of Algeria in January 1955. Initially viewed with suspicion by the Algerian French community, Soustelle soon came to be regarded as its principal spokesman, favouring the economic and political integration of Algeria with France. He was recalled in February 1956 by the Guy Mollet government.

As the leader of the Gaullist group in the National Assembly in 1956–58, Soustelle became known as the “destroyer of ministries”; his intensive attacks on their Algerian policies led to the downfall of three governments. He returned to Algeria in May 1958 and became a leader of the rebel Committee of Public Safety. In company with the Algerian French rebels, the mutinous army, and other sectors of French society, he helped force the May 28 resignation of Premier Pierre Pflimlin and his replacement by de Gaulle. He was appointed minister of information on July 7, 1958, and, after de Gaulle’s election to the presidency, he became minister for Sahara and atomic affairs in January 1959.

In February 1960 he left the government, increasingly in disagreement with de Gaulle’s policies toward Algeria, and went into exile in 1961. In December 1962 a warrant was placed for his arrest on grounds of plotting against the state. With the proclamation of a general amnesty in 1968, he returned to France and became director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He was elected to the National Assembly (1973–78) and served on the city council of Lyon (1971–77). Soustelle was also the founder and president of the National Movement of Progress and Liberty (1970). In 1973 he served as the French representative to the Council of Europe. He was elected to the French Academy on June 2, 1983.

Soustelle’s publications include La Vie quotidienne des Aztèques (1955; “The Daily Life of the Aztecs”), Aimée et souffrante Algérie (1956; “Beloved and Suffering Algeria”), L’Art du Mexique ancien (1966; Arts of Ancient Mexico), Vingt-huit ans de Gaullisme (1968; “Twenty-eight Years of Gaullism”), La Longue Marche d’Israël (1968; The Long March of Israel), Lettre ouverte aux victimes de la décolonisation (1973; “Open Letter to the Victims of Decolonization”), Archéologie et anthropologie (1976; “Archaeology and Anthropology”), L’Universe des Aztéques (1979; “The Universe of the Aztecs”), Les Olméques, la plus ancienne civilisation du Mexique (1979; “The Olmecs, the Most Ancient Civilization of Mexico”), and Les Maya (1982; “The Mayans”).