CHRISTIAN VALANTIN: MEMORY OF OUR INSTITUTIONAL AND DIPLOMATIC HISTORY AND EMBLEM OF THE CULTURAL UNITY OF SENEGAL.

Christian Valantin died in Paris at the age of 96. He was one of the last great men who witnessed the era when Léopold Sédar Senghor led Senegal.

Senegal will certainly pay tribute to him, due to his significant role in a part of our history, from Senghor to Abdou Diouf, alongside men who worked to found this Senegalese Republic that we have in common, and to shape its admirable administration.

Christian Valantin participated in the evolution and construction of my life as a man and it is for this profound reason that I owe him homage, by testifying to the immense stature of this man, the love he had for our country, Senegal, and the passion he felt for his native city Saint-Louis.

His exceptional trajectory led him to pursue a leading administrative and political career simultaneously. From the dawn of independence, he served as chief of staff to Léopold Sédar Senghor, when the latter presided over the Federal Assembly of Mali between 1959 and 1960. He then served as Governor of the Thiès Region from 1961 to 1962, before returning to the Presidency of the Republic of Senegal as chief of staff to the Head of State from 1966 to 1968.

The man we have lost today was a brilliant intellectual force, embodying a profound vision of the State and the Republic, of which he was, after all, one of the founding fathers, before becoming a leading figure in the vibrant intellectual circle that was the Nation and Development Club, alongside Babacar Ba, Alioune Sène, Louis Alexandrenne, Mamadou Touré, and others. The exchanges there were fruitful, the debates of a high caliber, driven by men of keen leadership. This think tank before its time, where Senegalese people, often young and patriotic, came to absorb the demands of politics and economic development, was where I met Christian Valantin, along with other young peers brimming with curiosity and talent. These men, shaped by Republican principles, guided us and convinced us of the immense value of our country. This emotional investment in this generation, whose emergence Christian Valantin foresaw, led him—convinced by the iconoclastic late Member of Parliament Edouard Diatta—to wish that, alongside Ousmane Blondin Diop, Bruno and Benjamin Diatta, I would enter the civil service. Only Bruno Diatta followed him down this path, with the well-known benefits for our Republic.

Christian Valantin graduated from ENFOM, like Abdou Diouf, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, and Daniel Cabou, and acquired a profound mastery of the Constitution and the Law. This man of great rigor was one of the cornerstones of the renowned BOM (Bureau of Organization and Methods), an unchanging and still vibrant foundation of the Senegalese administration.

A central figure in Senegalese parliamentarism, Christian Valantin served as a member of parliament continuously from 1968 to 2000, notably holding the position of First Vice-President of the National Assembly during his last seven years in office. This was the golden age of a National Assembly where debates reached stratospheric heights, both in their content and in the rhetorical arguments used to justify them. This era, now gone, saw the dynamic Abdourahim Agne, head of the Socialist Party's parliamentary group, face off against the brilliant Fara Ndiaye of the Senegalese Democratic Party, providing Senegalese citizens with the pleasure of a political debate that was as profound as it was respectful.

No one in Senegal was unaware of the affection Léopold Sédar Senghor held for him, whose speeches he wrote, and whose Chief of Staff he was during the time of the Mali Federation, and alongside whom he helped build an independent Senegal. He also has to his credit a bibliography centered on our President-Poet, publishing "30 Years of Political Life with Senghor" and "The History of the Francophonie."

This man, a devout Catholic, never missed Sunday Mass. Christian Valentin was the nephew of Ambassador André Guillabert, a relative of the Bancal family in Saint-Louis. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by his grandmother Suzanne, whom he affectionately called "Grandma," and who herself descended from the Royal Family of Djolof, closely linked to the Tijani Sufi order.

“I am a Domou Ndar,” he liked to proudly declare, punctuating this belonging with a vigorous “TIGI!” He cherished the idea of being born into a society that valued freedom and was free from discrimination. “Saint-Louis is a city without a medina, where everyone lives together,” he would say. And yet, it was within this political and cultural dynasty that his political awareness was born through the Thiaroye massacre. He would later say, “It was a trigger and an awakening to what colonization truly was.” His refined humanism even led him to believe that “the difference that existed between the French citizens of the four communes and the French subjects living in the bush had extremely discriminatory connotations, and that wasn’t right.”

"POLITICS, THROUGH ITS MODE OF EXPRESSION, HAS BECOME FUTILITY. THE GENERAL INTEREST IS ABSENT FROM IT."

Nostalgic for the Senghor era, he lamented that "money has destroyed Senegal," recounting that "Senghor didn't give money. We didn't want to be rich, money didn't matter, and the President said that Senegal should live within its means. Today, money has destroyed Senegal, and politics, through its mode of expression, has become futile. The common good is absent."

Christian Valantin, always surrounded by a halo of delicately Saint-Louisian elegance, liked to say that "Native land is synonymous with the one that holds you and that you cannot forget."

Saint-Louis awaits him, Ndar-la-belle, our shared city, where Christian Valantin chose to be laid to rest. A clear sign of the passion he held for his native land, where he will now rest in peace.

Thank you, Christian.

Thank you for existing.