Michel de Guillenchmidt

Michel de Guillenchmidt was born in Paris on 19 August 1941, during the German occupation, into a family of Russian origin. He graduated from the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) in 1961 and then attended the École nationale d'administration, graduating in 1967 as a member of the Marcel Proust class.

After ENA he joined the Conseil d'État as an auditor (1967 to 1974) and became a maître des requêtes in 1974. Between 1974 and 1979 he was seconded to ministers' private offices: policy adviser and then chief of staff to the Minister of Labour, deputy chief of staff to the Minister of the Economy and Finance (1976 to 1977) and chief of staff to the Minister of Industry (1978 to 1979).

In 1979 he took leave from the Conseil d'État and was sworn in at the Paris Bar, with a letter of recommendation written by the Conseil's vice-president Christian Chavanon. He was a partner at Gide Loyrette Nouel before returning to the Conseil d'État in 1983 as a government commissioner in its litigation section. He was chief of staff to the minister for research and higher education in 1987 and 1988 and became a conseiller d'État in 1989.

He returned to the Bar in 1990, practising with several firms and then at his own firm, De Guillenchmidt & Associés, mainly in public and environmental law, as well as international law and cases before the European Court of Human Rights. He taught constitutional law and public liberties as a university professor from 1988 and was dean of the law faculty at Paris Descartes University from 2003 to 2006. In 2016 he was named president of the supreme arbitration tribunal of the Franco-Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

In politics he was a municipal councillor and deputy mayor of Blois from 1971 to 1983 and a general councillor of Loir-et-Cher from 1973 to 1976. In 1984 he was the RPR's national delegate for freedoms and human rights. The Paris Bar noted that his commitment to fundamental freedoms led to missions in Afghanistan alongside the resistance, Eritrea, several countries of former communist Europe and the former Soviet Union, and Western Sahara. His books include Dénationaliser (1983), Histoire constitutionnelle de la France depuis 1789 (2000) and Droit constitutionnel et institutions politiques.

He was married to Jacqueline de Guillenchmidt, born Jacqueline de Boisséson, a lawyer who was later a member of the Constitutional Council of France. Their son Maxime and daughter Ariane both became lawyers in 2003. The family's death notice also named grandchildren, great-grandchildren and his brother. The family address given in the notice was the Château de Bury in Loir-et-Cher.

Michel de Guillenchmidt died in Paris on Monday 5 October 2026, aged 85. The Paris Bar published an in memoriam notice on 7 October, and family notices appeared in Le Figaro and La Nouvelle République. No cause of death was made public. A religious service was held at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris on 9 October 2026, and he was buried privately in the cemetery at Saint-Secondin.

He is remembered as a figure who moved between the Conseil d'État, ministerial offices, the Bar and the university, and as a teacher of constitutional law through his widely used textbook. The Paris Bar recalled his deep attachment to the defence of fundamental freedoms. He was an officer of the Legion of Honour (promoted 2009), an officer of the National Order of Merit and held the silver medal of Youth and Sports.