Daniel Blumenthal (25 January 1860 in Thann, Haut-Rhin – 25 March 1930 in Paris) was the mayor of Colmar from 1905 to 1914 and an elected member of the Reichstag between 1903 and 1907. He worked as a lawyer, first at the Landgericht in Mülhausen, and then at Alsace-Lorraine's Supreme Court at Colmar.
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.
Philippe Séguin (21 April 1943 – 7 January 2010) was a French political figure who was President of the National Assembly from 1993 to 1997 and President of the Cour des Comptes of France from 2004 to 2010.
He entered the Court of Financial Auditors in 1970, but he began a political career in the Neo-Gaullist party RPR. In 1978, he was elected to the National Assembly as a deputy for the Vosges département. He was Mayor of Épinal between 1983 and 1997.
Representing the social tradition of the Gaullism, he was Minister of Social Affairs in Jacques Chirac's cabinet, from 1986 to 1988.
After Chirac's defeat at the 1988 presidential election, he allied with Charles Pasqua and criticized the abandonment of Gaullist doctrine by the RPR executive. He accused Alain Juppé and Édouard Balladur of wanting an alignment on liberal and pro-European policies.
In 1992, he played a leading role in the No campaign against the Maastricht Treaty. On the eve of the vote he opposed President François Mitterrand in a televised debate.
As president of the National Assembly from 1993 to 1997, he supported the winning candidacy of Jacques Chirac at the 1995 presidential election. He inspired the theme of Chirac's campaign which was named "the social fracture".
Their relations deteriorated when he took the lead of the RPR, after the right-wing defeat at the 1997 legislative election. He failed to change the name of the party to "The Rally". He criticized the ascendancy of President Chirac within the party, refusing to be the leader of a "Chirac's fan-club". He resigned in 1999 just before the European elections, leaving his deputy Nicolas Sarkozy in charge.
As the RPR's official candidate, he lost the 2001 mayoral election in Paris. Refusing the merger of the Neo-Gaullist party with the right-wing classical forces in the Union for a Popular Movement, he quit politics in 2002.
He died at the age of 66 on 7 January 2010 from a heart attack.