Jacques Chevallier

Who was Jacques Chevallier?

Jacques Chevallier was a liberal pied noir mayor of Algiers who governed the city at the head of a coalition of pied noir and Moslem representatives.

He was also the secretary of state for war in the government of Pierre Mendès-France.

Chevallier was born on 15 November 1911 in Bordeaux. His father Etienne Chavellier was an industrialist who also had lands in Algeria; his mother was born Corinne de la Bédoyère Huchet de Kernion. He studied at various Catholic colleges, including Notre Dame d’Afrique at Algiers, and at the University of Algiers where he obtained a degree in law. He married Renée Missé on 27 December 1932. They had five sons and two daughters, one of whom is the historian and novelist Corinne Chevallier.

After WWII, he helped Boris Souvarine to recreate the Institut d'histoire sociale. He was the interim president of Institut d'Histoire Sociale from 1956 to 1957.

On 16 May 1955, Chevallier secured the parole of eleven FLN detainees who had been arrested after the November 1954 attacks, including Benyoucef Benkhedda, the future president of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic.