Chodron de Courcel, Geoffroy

Date of birth:: September 11th, 1912 (Tours, France)
Date of death:: December 9th, 1992 (Paris, France)
Nationality:: French

Biography

A reserve officer student, he was demobilized with the rank of second lieutenant in October 1933 and became a doctor of law, a degree in literature and a graduate of the School of Political Sciences.

Attaché to the Embassy in Warsaw from 1937 to 1938, then secretary of the Embassy in Athens, he was mobilized in Istanbul and sent to Beirut in September 1939. Assigned to the General Staff commanding the theater of operations in Eastern Mediterranean, until April 1940, he then left on relaxation leave and arrived in France in the first days of May 1940.

On June 7, 1940, he was appointed as an orderly officer for General de Gaulle. He volunteered to accompany her on her departure from Bordeaux for London on June 17th.

First officer to join the Free French Forces, on June 18, 1940, he was until August 1941 chief of staff to General de Gaulle. Geoffroy de Courcel was assigned in December 1941 to the Moroccan Spahis, to the Army Corps Reconnaissance Group (GRCA) where he commanded the 3rd Auto-cannon Squadron with which he participated in the campaigns in Libya and Tunisia.

In the first months of 1942, leader of an armored personnel carrier, he carried out numerous patrols and engaged in several fights in Jock column (tactical group made up of elements of motorized infantry, a towed artillery battery, a platoon of machine guns, a section of 75mm anti-tank guns and light elements of anti-aircraft, engineers and radio transmissions) in the Libyan desert.

In April 1942 Captain de Courcel joined the Jourdier squadron group in Egypt and took command of the 3rd squadron.

Within the GRCA, which became the 1st Moroccan Spahis Marching Regiment, he distinguished himself in the combat of El Alamein, on October 24, 1942, by judiciously supporting the infantry attack with his fires then by protecting his withdrawal and again on November 5, 6 and 7, 1942, pursuing a retreating enemy.

He distinguished himself on March 6, 1943, in Tunisia, in the battle of Oued Gragour where, responsible for forbidding the enemy the road to Foum Tataouine, he held this road against a very superior enemy; he is wounded during the battle.

Promoted squadron leader, he distinguished himself once again on April 14, 15 and 16, 1943 in the western region of Jebel Fadloum by entering the enemy system and inflicting losses on it.

Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel was assigned on July 13, 1943 and until June 1944 in Algiers as deputy director of the cabinet of General de Gaulle. He was then until August 1944 Regional Commissioner of the Republic on mission in the Liberated Territories and then, until April 1945, Regional Commissioner of the Republic in charge of Alsace-Lorraine Services at the Ministry of the Interior.

Returned to civilian life, he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Member of the Council of the Order of the Liberation since January 1944, Geoffroy de Courcel was subsequently First Counselor in Rome (1947-1950) then head of department then director of bilateral agreements in 1951 and, in 1953, director of Africa -Levant.

In 1954, he was Director General of Political and Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Moroccan and Tunisian Affairs and, the following year, Permanent Secretary General of National Defense.

Permanent representative of France to the NATO Council in 1958, Geoffroy de Courcel was then Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic (1959).

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in London from 1962, he was elevated to the dignity of Ambassador of France in 1965.

Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1973 and ex officio member of the Atomic Energy Committee (CEA), he was a member of the French delegation to the 29th session of the United Nations GA in 1974.

In 1977 Geofroy de Courcel was the State representative on the Board of Directors of the Compagnie française des Pétroles (mandate renewed in 1980) and, in 1978, he was also President of the France-Great Britain Association.

Retired in September 1978, he was then president of the French section of the Franco-British Council, then member and vice-president of the Diplomatic Archives Commission.

In October 1984, he was elected president of the Charles de Gaulle Institute.