French Ministers of Defence

Pierre Gabriel Adhéaume de Chevigné (16 June 1909 – 4 April 2004) was a French politician, who was the Minister of Defence in the Fourth Republic between 14 May and 1 June 1958.

François Gérard Marie Léotard (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa ʒeʁaʁ maʁi leɔtaʁ]; 26 March 1942 – 25 April 2023) was a French politician. Singer and actor Philippe Léotard was his brother.
A member of the Republican Party, the liberal-conservative component of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), he appeared in the foreground of the political scene in the 1980s. He led a new generation of right-wing politicians, the "renovationmen", who opposed the old right-wing leaders Jacques Chirac and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
In 1981, he was selected to be one of the first Young Leaders of the French-American Foundation. His political career started with being elected as the mayor of Fréjus in 1977. He served two terms as the deputy of Var.As culture minister from 1986 to 1988, he sold the main public TV channel TF1. He returned to the French cabinet as defense minister, from 1993 to 1995. Supporting the candidacy of Edouard Balladur in the 1995 presidential election, he was dismissed after Chirac's election. Elected president of the UDF in 1996, he could not prevent the split of this confederation two years later with Alain Madelin's secession. This and the party's poor showing in the 1998 regional elections prompted his resignation. After a mission in Macedonia in 2001 as representative of the European Union, he retired from politics. In 2003, he created together with other prominent European personalities the Medbridge Strategy Center, whose goal is to promote dialogue and mutual understanding between Europe and the Middle East. He later authored several books.
Léotard died in Fréjus on 25 April 2023, at age 81.

Robert Galley (11 January 1921 – 8 June 2012) was a French politician and member of the Free French Forces during World War II, for which he received the Ordre de la Libération.Galley was born in Paris on January 11, 1921. He was the son of a doctor. During the Fall of France in 1940, Galley was able to escape to the United Kingdom disguised as a Polish soldier. He joined the Free French Forces and was sent to North Africa, including the Battle of El Alamein. Galley was next stationed within General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque's 2nd Armored Division, through which he participated in the Liberation of Paris and the Western Allied invasion of Germany. Galley later married General Leclerc de Hauteclocque's daughter, Jeanne Leclerc de Hauteclocque, following the end of World War II.After the war, Galley passed the entrance examinations to the French graduate engineering schools and was admitted to the Ecole Centrale Paris, from which he graduated in 1949.
He worked and held various positions in areas of petroleum, nuclear energy, and informatics. From 1955 to 1966, he headed the construction of various nuclear plants and research facilities for the CEA. He was the Deputy Information Officer to the French Prime Minister and Chairman of the Board of Directors of INRIA in 1967.
Galley began his political career in 1968. He served as a government minister for fourteen consecutive years within the administrations of three French Presidents - Charles de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Galley held the portfolios of Minister of Infrastructure, Minister of Housing, Minister of Research and Space, Minister of Telecommunications, Minister of Transportation, Minister of Defence from 1973 to 1974, and Minister of Cooperation from 1976 to 1980.Galley also served as Mayor of Troyes from 1972 to 1995.Robert Galley died in Troyes, France, on June 8, 2012, at the age of 91.

Eugène Charles Hernu (3 July 1923 – 17 January 1990) was a French socialist politician. He served as Minister of Defence from 1981 to 1985, until forced to resign over the bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand.