René Capitant
René Marie Alphonse Charles Capitant was a French lawyer and politician.
He was the son of a lawyer, Henri Capitant, and attended the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. He received his Juris Doctor degree also in Paris.
In 1930, he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Strasbourg and became a member of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an anti-fascist organization of intellectuals.
During World War II, he was involved in the creation of the resistance movement Combat in Clermont-Ferrand. He had to leave the country and became a law professor at the University of Algiers in 1941. After the Liberation, he became the Minister of Public Education in the provisional government.
From 1945 to 1951, he was a leftist Gaullist member of the National Assembly of France. In 1946, he founded, with Louis Vallon, the Union gaulliste.
After 1951, he was a law professor in Paris and was named director of the Franco-Japanese House in Tokyo from 1957 to 1960. He was then re-elected to the National Assembly from 1962 to 1968.
He served as the Minister of Justice in the Georges Pompidou and Couve de Murville governments from 1968 to 1969.
