Julie Legrand

This is a Gylian name. The surname is Legrand. This person is customarily referred to by the given name Julie.

Julie Legrand
Minister of the Public Sector of Gylias
In office 2 January 1958 – 5 March 1976
Prime Minister	Darnan Cyras
Personal details
Born	(1928-01-28) 28 January 1928 Senik, Alscia
Political party	Democratic Communist Party (1948–1976; 1986–present) Independent (1976–1986)

Julie Françoise Manon Élise Zoë Cécile Sophie Legrand (Gylic transcription: Juli Fyransuaz Manon Eliz Zoe Sesil Sofi Legrandy; born 20 January 1928) is a Gylian politician. She was Gylias' public sector minister in the Darnan Cyras government.

She was instrumental in the establishment of Gylias' robust public service, encompassing both administrative agencies and public organisations. For this, she was nicknamed the "mother of Gylias' public service". She was additionally famed for her flamboyant personality and glamorous public image, making her one of the cabinet's most popular ministers.

Early life

She was born on 20 January 1928 in Senik. She came from a modestly well-off French family, and learned French as her first language. Her parents named her "Julie Françoise Manon Élise Zoë Cécile Sophie Legrand", amalgamating all the first names they had considered but couldn't decide between. Her unusually long name was a source of pride for Julie; as an adult, she would often end a promise with "… or my name isn't Julie Françoise Manon Élise Zoë Cécile Sophie Legrand!", and chastise those who displeased her by making them address her by her full name.

Julie attended primary and secondary school in Senik. Her parents believed she was destined for great things, and thus Julie displayed a strong sense of self-confidence and purpose from an early age. During a family trip to Etra, she became fascinated with the pomp and glamour of politics. On the way home, she told her parents, "I want to be in government."

Her formal schooling was curtailed by Alscia's accession to the Free Territories. Instead, it was continued in volunteer classes.

Shortly after her 20th birthday, she joined the Democratic Communist Party. She served in both communal assemblies and was elected for a term as delegate to the General Council. She came under the influence of the Freeman sisters, who took her as a protégé.

Although she was a member of the DCP, her political beliefs were somewhat vague in her early years, and gradually evolved during the Liberation War. The journalist Luisa Braglia, after meeting Julie, wrote that "I found her commitment to anarchism somewhat in question." In the General Council, she took an interest in public administration, preoccupying herself with how policies could be efficiently implemented. This made her sympathetic to Donatella Rossetti's vision of "government as an engineering marvel with an elegance of structure".

She privately remarked that anarchists had a difficult time countering the appeal of Donatellism, since formerly poor Gylians were equally likely to hate government as an oppressive force and find the idea of government helping them revolutionary in itself, rather than understand government as inherently oppressive.

Similarly, despite her DCP membership, she had a personal admiration of Adélaïde Raynault, both due to their shared French background and fascination with the contrast between her genial demeanour and severe rhetoric. In one of their last encounters, she remarked, "Adélaïde, chérie, tu es de l'histoire. Je suis de l'avenir." ("Adélaïde, darling, you're history. I'm the future.") Julie saw Adélaïde as a rival for her ambition to be a dominant French figure in public life; Adélaïde's death in 1956 allowed Julie to seize the mantle with no real competition.

As the war neared its end, Darnan Cyras invited her to join the post-war Executive Committee with responsibility for public services, which she accepted. Darnan was initially wary of Julie's political sympathies, but made the decision based on her charisma and passion for public service.

Minister of the Public Sector

Julie visiting Tomes as cabinet minister, 1960

Julie took office with the rest of the Executive Committee on 2 January 1958. Her post was retroactively renamed "Minister of the Public Sector" when the Constitution was adopted in 1961.

In office, she took the lead in establishing the modern Gylian civil service, managing to reconcile the traditional ideal of a merit-based, permanent civil service with the anarchist heritage of the Free Territories. She adopted the model of the cabinet ministries as small policy-making institutions, and the independent civil service carrying out the formulated policies. This reconciliation mirrored the anarchist–liberal "miserable compromise" of the Constitution, disappointing anarchists who hoped for a rapid abolition of the state.

She both took the initiative and encouraged the creation of administrative agencies, and made sure that public organisations also came under her purview to an extent. She believed in the mobilisation of Gylias' reservoir of expertise to improve government and achieve progress, influenced by the Alscian and Free Territories precedents of applied science.

Accordingly, she built close relations between the government and the university sector, and regularly commissioned scientific reports and advice on the smallest issue. She felt that good governance and legislation required as a well-informed population and knowledgeable ministers with access to as much information possible.

Above all, Julie believed axiomatically that the public sector was superior to the private sector, viewing the public sector as guided by higher ideals and moral purpose. Public service had to live up to high standards of quality, efficiency, and courtesy. She devoted much energy to promoting the ideal of "private sufficiency, public luxury", which successfully imparted an image of grandeur and prestige onto public service.

Heading a ministry tasked with coordinating the public sector, Julie dedicated herself mainly to the symbolic and publicity aspects of the post. Highly energetic, she criss-crossed Gylias, taking part in inspections and public events, and making numerous speeches and opinion pieces. Her speeches presented public service as a glamorous and patriotic duty, and contributed highly to the attractiveness and high morale of civil servants. She worked closely with Cabinet Office Chief of Staff Joan Holloway, and the two became influential champions of public service.

Julie succeeded in overseeing the creation of a vast and supple civil service. Its effectiveness was crucial to the success of the Golden Revolution, allowing efficient public administration to ally with radical currents transforming society, contributing to the atmosphere of revolutionary exuberance and experimentation. The restriction of ministries to policy-making roles and healthy oversight of administrative agencies contributed to Gylias' distinction as one of the least corrupt countries in Tyran, and high public confidence in the political system. An enduring phenomenon emerged of Gylias' "best and brightest" gravitating towards either public service or creative endeavours.

Public image

Julie was famous for her mischievous sense of humour and reveling in the pageantry of office

Julie was one of the youngest and most colourful members of the cabinet, and benefited from a bombastic reputation that suited her well as minister. She had a glamorous public image, recognised for her distinctive outfit of a green skirt suit with a large matching hat and a white shirt with a cravat, earning her the nickname "the green lady" (l'dame vert or l'dame en vert).

Together with Eðe Saima and Birgit Eckstein, Julie formed the chahuteuses ("rowdies"), a group in the cabinet famed for their flamboyant personalities and bonne vivante lifestyles. Several of her colleagues joked that she, Eðe, Rin Tōsaka, and Aliska Géza formed a cartel that shaped cabinet meetings and agenda, acknowledging their vital contribution and high esteem among the cabinet.

Julie was famed for her proud and flamboyant personality. She exuded a sense of self-confidence that flirted with arrogance, but was tempered with French seductiveness and sharp wit. She loved being the centre of attention and joining in activities where she could test her fortitude.

The columnist Denise Sarrault wrote that Julie "convinced many Gylians a French woman wasn't complete without an attractive audacity", and analysed her appeal: "Many would've been tempted to appear in a public information film promoting public service and authoritatively bark, «What are you waiting for? Join today!». Julie was smarter: she recited it with a seductive wink, making the challenge less of an insult and more of a playful dominatrix."

It was this larger-than-life personality that Julie channeled into the ambition of embodying the ideals of the public sector, the way Rin Tōsaka did with education. She delighted in appearing in public, observing the workings of administrative agencies and praising their workers, speaking directly with ordinary Gylians, and exhorting students and young Gylians to pursue a career in civil service. She set a record for media appearances in the Darnan Cyras government, issuing "blizzards" of press releases, penning editorials for publications, and giving interviews on radio and television.

Her obvious and sincere passion for public service appealed to the public, as traits that would've ordinarily grated such as her arrogance were applied to a higher purpose.

In cabinet, Julie and Eðe were close friends, and at the same time engaged in a light-hearted rivalry in public, owing to their similarly showboating personalities and complementary ministerial posts. Their humorous insult matches and contests of sharp wit served as highlights of cabinet meetings, entertaining their colleagues. Akane Tsunemori remarked in her diary, "They were inseparable friends who happened to be constantly at each other's throats."

Julie during a parliamentary session, 1964

Parliament served as a main stage for Julie's larger-than-life personality. She was a Deputy for Arxaþ starting in 1962 — the only Progressive Alliance deputy in a Liberal Union stronghold. She was a talented parliamentary performer, renowned for her mastery of her brief and command of parliamentary invective; she and Iulia Edver were two of the government's strongest defenders and advocates. Even ARENA leader Emilia Malandrino remarked, "Woe betide anyone unfortunate enough to cross swords with Julie's tongue."

Her easygoing preeminence in Parliament was famously captured in footage and photos that showed her lounging on her bench while smiling with pleasure during parliamentary sessions.

Julie had a mischievous sense of humour, and was not above poking fun at herself or her image. She sometimes referred to herself in the third person for comic effect; in private, she maintained a distinction between herself and "Julie Legrand" the public character she "performed". She jokingly alluded to her vanity, once quipping that one of Gylias' greatest love stories was that of "Julie Legrand and Julie Legrand", and posed for a famous photograph by Annemarie Beaulieu depicting her kissing her reflection in a mirror.

Outside of work, she was a regular attendee of Sibylla, and formed a close friendship with Sofia Westergaard as Delkora's ambassador to Gylias, who enjoyed Julie's charisma and flamboyance as reminders of her younger self. Julie was a gourmand and a regular drinker of champagne and wine. Eðe nicknamed her "steel liver" because of her seemingly high alcohol tolerance.

Later life

Re-elected in 1976, Julie was vocally opposed to a coalition with the Revolutionary Rally. She remarked that she would rather have joined a grand coalition with the National Bloc, condemning talk of a coalition with the RR as a betrayal of the Lucian Purge.

When the Aén Ďanez government was sworn in, she resigned from the DCP and remained an independent. She remained a "scourge" of the new government in Parliament, and won re-election as an independent in 1980 and 1985. Despite her continued high profile, she turned down offers to assume a leading role in the PA or run for the presidency. She commented that, with her departure from cabinet, "a spell was broken", and didn't want to "sully my biography with a sad and failed footnote to the glory years".

Owing to her strong opposition to the government, she was one of the few PA parliamentarians not targeted for defeat by People Power-Citizens' Movement. In fact, PP-CM even endorsed her in her circonscription, praising her principled decision to quit the DCP in protest against the coalition. After the PA was ejected from the coalition in 1983, she reconciled with the party, and promised to rejoin once it had returned to office.

After the Ossorian war crisis of 1986 toppled the government, Julie rejoined the DCP and supported the Filomena Pinheiro government. She annouced she would retire at the 1990 federal election, ending a 32-year parliamentary tenure.

In retirement, Julie maintained her high profile and burnished her reputation as the "mother of Gylias' public service". She provided advice to the Mathilde Vieira government and subsequent governments, embracing the role of an elder stateswoman. She assembled collections of her writings from office, noting with humour that the best-selling was a collection of quotations titled The Wit and Wisdom of Julie Legrand, and continued to write, publishing a well-received autobiography in 2008. She remarked that writing "is an excellent weapon against mental decline in old age".

She was interviewed for Rasa Ḑeşéy's 1999 documentary Nation Building, and was later the subject of her own documentary, Julie Levieille ("Julie the old"), in 2016. In a positive review, Downtown wrote that the documentary "focuses touchingly on Julie's longevity, contrasting the physical ravages of her appearance with her thankfully undimmed joie de vivre and larger-than-life personality".

Legacy

Julie was a towering figure in the Golden Revolution, widely known for her achievements as public sector minister and personality. Her role in the successful creation and oversight of Gylias' civil service contributed markedly to the success of the Golden Revolution, and became a bedrock of the Gylian consensus. She helped establish public service as a glamorous and appealing career choice, attracting numerous talented workers, and establishing Gylians' expectations of efficiency, high quality, and opulent appeal from the public sphere. These have had an enduring impact on Gylian politics, society, and the economy.

Julie's personality was the subject of affectionate parody and imitation in pop culture. It was an influence on rezy (particularly Remi Ďana) and nénédie, and similar genres of pornography that eroticised the archetype of a well-dressed, arrogantly appealing woman. Although Julie herself only flirted with "wickedness" to a lesser extent than Birgit and Eðe, she became an inspiration for many creators in how to depict "wicked" characters. Marie-Agnès Delaunay declared herself an admirer of Julie, and modelled her "wicked" persona after Julie's casual dominance.

Private life

Julie engaged in several romantic relationships during her lifetime. She never married and had no children, explaining that she chose to prioritise her career, and joking that "a spouse or child gets in the way of the love affair between me and myself."

She identifies as an atheist, and is a supporter of francité.