Pierre Messmer, French lieutenant and politician, Prime Minister of France (died 2007)

Pierre Joseph Auguste Messmer was a French Gaullist politician. He served as Minister of Armies under Charles de Gaulle from 1960 to 1969 – the longest serving since Étienne François, duc de Choiseul under Louis XV – and then as Prime Minister under Georges Pompidou from 1972 to 1974. A member of the French Foreign Legion, he was considered one of the historical Gaullists, and died aged 91 in the military hospital of the Val-de-Grâce in August 2007. He was elected a member of the Académie française in 1999; his seat was taken over by Simone Veil.

The prime minister of France, officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and leader of its Council of Ministers, although the officeholder does not chair its meetings, as the president does.