The dashing 50-year-old already has numerous doctrinal contributions to his credit in the field of constitutional law. And, soon, Pascal Jan will publish one on a subject he knows well: the prefect and freedoms. No doubt he will be able to combine his theoretical reflections with some elements of his own experience since, since the beginning of April, he has taken up his duties as prefect of Yonne.
A new hat for this jack-of-all-trades academic who, before being appointed to Auxerre, had held the post of rector of Martinique for more than four years – a record longevity. His unusual career illustrates Emmanuel Macron’s desire to unlock the prefectural body and open it up to new profiles.
Born in Tours in 1967, this professor of public law began his career as a researcher with a thesis on referral to the Constitutional Council, in 1997, crowned by the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. He was then recruited as a lecturer at Bordeaux-IV University and passed the public law aggregation.
Swiss army knife of the Republic
For fifteen years, from 2003 to 2018, he taught at the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Bordeaux, where he was at the origin of a “ENA objective” intended to ensure that young people from provincial institutes can access the best civil service competitions, namely those of the National School of Administration, the Parliamentary Assemblies and the National Institute of Territorial Studies.
The political scientist Jean Petaux, who rubbed shoulders with him at the IEP, evokes “a very sharp teacher and very appreciated by his students, whom he held by his charisma”. “It can sometimes give the worst or the best; in this case, it was the best, he judges. He is someone who strongly believes in success ropes. He himself is an example of Republican merit. It does not surprise me that the prefecture interested him. The prefect is a Swiss army knife of the Republic, it suits him very well. »
Thus, the Sciences Po Bordeaux preparatory course has become “a hotbed of young talent”. Among these, Frédéric Potier, former interministerial delegate for the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and anti-LGBT hatred, who is full of praise for his former teacher. “He is someone who experiments a lot, who does not stay within the guidelines, with a certain courage, praises the one who was an overseas adviser to Matignon in the cabinets of Manuel Valls and Bernard Cazeneuve. It is proof that the royal road to the prefectural does not exist. Typically, he is one of those personalities who could aspire to a great career. »
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