Lafontaine Oscar, German politician

Lafontaine Oscar, who was born on September 16, 1943 in Saarlouis, is a German-minded politician, former chairman of the Social Democratic Party and one of the founders of the new left-wing Die Linke party.

Education and family

Oscar Lafontaine studied at physics departments in the Bonn and Saaran universities from 1962 to 1969. He devoted his thesis to the cultivation of monocrystals of barium titanate.

According to the confession, Lafontaine Oscar, whose personal life was repeatedly discussed in the press, regards himself to the Catholic Church. He was married to Christa Muller, who leads the campaign against the operations in Africa on genitalia, crippling people. In 1997, they had a son, Carl Maurice.

In 2014, the media reported on a secret marriage between two prominent German political figures. The heroes of the publication were Sarah Wagenkneht and Lafontaine Oscar.

Career in the Saarland

His political career, Lafontaine began in local government, when he became mayor of Saarbrucken. He was widely known when he opposed the policies of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who supported NATO's plans to install Pershing II missiles in Germany.

From 1985 to 1998 he was the Prime Minister of the Land of Saarland. As Prime Minister, Lafontaine tried, with subsidies, to support the traditional industries of steel and coal production. In 1992-1993, he also served as chairman of the Bundesrat. Some critics already at that time believed that Lafontaine, like anyone else, could aggravate conflict situations. Nevertheless, this did not prevent him from being nominated for the post of Chancellor from the SPD during the elections to the Bundestag in 1990.

Candidate to the Chancellors

At the German federal elections in 1990, Lafontaine was a candidate for the post of chancellor from the SPD. The party lost the elections because it supported the CDU, which was in power during the reunification of Germany and therefore was held responsible for the problems that arose. During the campaign, after the speech in Cologne, Lafontaine was attacked with a knife by a mentally unhealthy woman named Adelhide Streidel. She damaged Lafontaine's carotid artery, and he remained in critical condition for several days.

Return to policy

In 1995, at the party meeting in Mannheim, Lafontaine was elected chairman of the SPD, replacing Rudolf Sharping at this post. It is believed that it is he who is responsible for the SPD's turn against Helmut Kohl and his party CDU, although earlier these political associations actively cooperated. Lafontaine said that any help provided to Kohl would only help the CDU stay in power.

This idea helped the SPD to break out in the public opinion polls conducted in September 1998. Lafontaine was appointed Federal Minister of Finance in the first government of Gerhard Schroeder.

Minister of Finance

During his short stay as finance minister, Lafontaine was often attacked by "Eurosceptics" from Great Britain. The main reason for this was Lafontaine's desire to make taxes the same throughout the European Union. This could lead to an increase in some taxes in the UK.

On March 11, 1999, he resigned from all his government and party posts, saying that he does not receive any help from other cabinet ministers. Later in the newspaper Bild-Zeitung, which is considered rather conservative, an article appeared with sharp remarks addressed to the government of Angela Merkel. The author was La Fontaine Oscar, whose photo was printed on the front page.

Party of the Left

On May 24, 2005, Lafontaine left the SPDG. On June 10, he announced his intention to go to the elections as the leading candidate for the association "The Left Party. PDS," a coalition of the "Elective Alternative for Labor and Social Justice" (WASG), based in the western lands of Germany, And the "Party of Democratic Socialism" (PDS), which was the direct heir of the East German Communist Party.

Lafontaine joined the WASG on June 18, 2005 and on the same day was selected as the candidate who should lead their list in the federal elections in North Rhine-Westphalia. He was also nominated for the Saarbruecken constituency, but lost. Nevertheless, the result of the leftist party in the Saar was better than in other federal states in western Germany.

January 23, 2010 at the party meeting of the "left" Oscar Lafontaine announced his departure from the post of party chairman and the resignation of a deputy in the federal parliament. The cause was health problems: a few months before, Lafontaine was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and in November he lay down on the operating table. Although the operation was successful, Lafontaine left all posts, leaving only the post of head of the "leftist" faction in the Saarland Diet. Lafontaine Oscar, whose biography as politics began exactly in Saar, returned to where his brilliant and controversial political career started in the distant 1970s.

Criticism of Lafontaine

The article by Lafontaine in Der Spiegel, dedicated to Erich Honecker, the statesman and party figure of the GDR, who was a native of the land of Saar, was criticized by many people who believed that it emphasizes some of Honecker's good deeds and ignored all that was bad.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lafontaine lost the support of some leftist believers who decided that he took sides with business, and also because of his calls for a reduction in the influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe and asylum-seekers.