Édouard Balladur (1929 - )

Mavi Boncuk |

Édouard Balladur (born 2 May 1929) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France under François Mitterrand from 29 March 1993 to 10 May 1995. He unsuccessfully ran for president in the 1995 French presidential election, coming in third place. At age 92, Balladur is currently the oldest living former French Prime Minister.

Balladur was born in Izmir[1], Turkey, to an ethnic Armenian family with five children and longstanding ties to France. His family emigrated to Marseille in the mid-to-late 1930s. The family changed their original name from Balladurian to  Balladur. 

In 1957, Balladur married Marie-Josèphe Delacour, with whom he had four sons.

The Ottoman empire generally ruled with a light hand. On some 14 July celebrations, French consuls boasted, there were so many French flags and orchestras playing the Marseillaise that Izmir appeared to be a French city. French-connected families included the Armenian Balladurs:[2] Son of Pierre Balladur, banker, director of the Ottoman Bank[3], and Émilie Latour, Édouard Balladur was born in İzmir, Turkey, on May 2, 1929, who became prime minister of France, was born in Izmir in 1929.

[1] Parents: Pierre BALLADUR 1879- ; Émilie Pauline Blanche LATOUR 1888-

His parents took refuge in France, in Marseille, in 1935, with their six children , in an apartment located at 227 boulevard Chave.

Édouard Balladur and his wife Marie-Josèphe have an apartment in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, boulevard Delessert, and own a chalet, Le Mérande, in Chamonix (Haute-Savoie) as well as a property in Tourgéville (Calvados).

 At the age of six, Édouard Balladur entered the diocesan institution of Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, then, in 1942, the Lycée Thiers. He remained very attached to Provence, which is part of his family roots. His brother Robert will be one of the notables of the Marseille city. On his arrival in the capital in 1946, the young Édouard Balladur moved to the Marist Brothers - the famous “104”, rue de Vaugirard, frequented fifteen years earlier by François Mitterrand. 

He studied law at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, public service section from which he graduated in 1950. Tuberculosis kept him from studying but, cured, he entered the National School of Administration in 1955. and came out in the “boot” in 1957. (Promotion France-Afrique). He set up a small working group at ENA, with Jérôme Monod, Pierre Verbrugghe, future Paris police prefect, Jacques Calvet, future CEO of Peugeot, and Jean Dromer, future CEO of Louis Vuitton. After his first year internship at the Charente prefecture and his thesis on “The Barangé law and school buildings”, he chose the social option in the second year. He was also a lecturer at the IEP in Paris in 1958.

He then chose to join the Council of State, in the Litigation and Public Works sections and married Marie-Josèphe Delacour, from a family of industrialists from Jura, in Saint-Amour, on August 28, 1957. They had four sons. : Pierre (doctor, PU-PH), Jérôme (investment banker, managing director of Fonds Partenaires Gestion and managing partner of Lazard Frères), Henri (co-director of Euro RSCG Geneva) and Romain.

[2] At the start of the 18th century, the Balladur were part of a small community of Catholics, converted and led since the 14th century by the Dominicans, in Nakhitchevan, a piece of Armenian Caucasus disputed by the three empires (Persian, Russian and Ottoman) because he controls the Silk Road. The community thrives in trading, protected by France, like all non-Muslims in the region. He speaks Armenian and Latin, but considers himself Frankish. Alas, wars follow one another; in 1740, Father Thomas Issaverdens, head of the community (whose great-niece married a Balladur), decided: we must leave. In block. All will go to Smyrna, where they have had business relations for ages. In a few generations, those who are called the "Persians" will rebuild their fortunes in trade or finance and become part of the Catholic community led by the French consulate. 

Edouard Balladur is right to deny any link with the Armenian community. His ancestors were never a part of it. " Also note these comments by Mr. Balladur reported by Thierry Ardisson: "I'm not Turkish, I'm Ottoman. Yes, yes, that's it, Ottoman."

Decisive turning point in the family, in 1795, by edict/firman (to change from Gregorian Church to a Catholic Church) of Sultan Selim III, the Balladurians who became Balladur had the rank of "Frankish subjects". The practice is then current: the sultan, according to his good will, grants to the Western embassies a certain number of "capitulations" ("bérats" or "barats"). Tradering with Livorno, Manchester, but above all Marseille, the Balladurs were "frank barataire", which will facilitate their application for French naturalization in 1926. In the meantime, the situation in Turkey had changed and the Young Turks were desperate to recover. the economic power available to the Greeks, Armenians and the "Frankish baratories" commonly referred to as "Levantines".  In the meantime, the Balladur family is evolving. By successive marriages, she allied herself with other Armenians, like the Issaverdens, with Italians, preferably Venetians, but even more with French people and in particular Provençals.

[3] A lot of Izmir Levantines such as Caporal and Balladur involved in the boards of the major banks of the day, such as the Ottoman bank and Salonica bank. 

Balladur: Numerous writers have given as origin Persian – Catholic of a very high French culture. Active in trade, automotive, banking, Herman Balladur was cotton expert, Robert Balladur was a vice consul of the French Consulate. The 1898-99 annuary also lists family members as teachers, doctors. Kararas in his Cordelio book he wrote with the cooperation of Livio Missir mentions that Edouard Balladur a former French Prime Minister was born at Cordelio on July 1929 and that his father Pierre Balladur was with the Ottoman Bank. The remains of the Marcel Balladur house in Buca, it once did have upper an upper floor - identification courtesy of Rose Marie Caporal.

For the curious: Prominent French people of Armenian descent next to the former prime minister Édouard Balladur include the singer Charles Aznavour,  and the chief executive officer of the telecommunications company Alcatel, Serge Tchuruk.