Léo Pétillon
Belgian colonial civil servant and lawyer / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Léo Pétillon (22 May 1903 – 1 April 1996) was a Belgian colonial civil servant and lawyer who served as Governor-General of the Belgian Congo (1952–58) and, briefly, as Minister of the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi (1958).
Léo Pétillon | |
---|---|
Minister of the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi | |
In office 5 July 1958 – 6 November 1958 | |
Monarch | Baudouin |
Prime Minister | Gaston Eyskens |
Preceded by | Auguste Buisseret |
Succeeded by | Maurice Van Hemelrijck |
Governor-General of the Belgian Congo | |
In office 1 January 1952 – 12 July 1958 | |
Monarch | Baudouin |
Preceded by | Eugène Jungers |
Succeeded by | Hendrik Cornelis |
Governor of Ruanda-Urundi | |
In office 19 July 1949 – 1 January 1952 | |
Monarchs | Prince Charles (to 1950) Leopold III (1950–51) Baudouin (from 1951) |
Governor General | Eugène Jungers |
Preceded by | Maurice Simon |
Succeeded by | Alfred Claeys-Boúúaert |
Personal details | |
Born | Léon Antoine Marie Pétillon (1903-05-22)22 May 1903 Esneux, Province of Liège, Belgium |
Died | 1 April 1996(1996-04-01) (aged 92) Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium |
Pétillon studied Law and practiced as a lawyer, before entering the Belgian colonial service in 1929. He worked for several years at the Ministry of the Colonies in Brussels, serving as aide to a series of ministers. In 1939, he secured a posting to the Belgian Congo as aide to the Governor-General and spent most of World War II in the colony or with the Belgian government in exile in London. In 1946, Pétillon was promoted to Vice Governor-General, given responsibility for the Belgian mandate of Ruanda-Urundi. In 1952, he was promoted to the position of Governor-General himself, holding the position until 1958. After the end of his tenure, he briefly held a Ministerial position himself as technocrat in the government of Gaston Eyskens. He retired in 1959 and published several books. He died in 1996.