Francis Perrin - Lobbyist

Lobbyist

Named High-Commissioner of the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (Atomic Energy Commission, CEA) in 1951—to replace Frédéric Joliot-Curie dismissed because he was opposed to military research—, Francis Perrin joined a lobby of about a dozen people, composed of politicians like Chaban-Delmas, Bourguès-Maunoury and Félix Gaillard, of military officers, like the generals Ailleret, Gallois, and Crépin, of technocrats like Pierre Guillaumat and Raoul Dautry or of scientists like Yves Rocard and Bertrand Goldschmidt, who revealed themselves to be extremely effective. This lobby imposed on successive governments of the Fourth Republic an intensive research program to permit France to deploy nuclear weapons without any real political control from outside France. Secret departments were made up within the CEA to implement this policy as of 1954. General Charles de Gaulle was informed of the work during his "Crossing of the Desert" (1953/58), in particular by Chaban-Delmas. When de Gaulle returned to power in 1958, the progress of the work was such that the date of the first nuclear test was already fixed at 1960.