A former notary based in Lussac, near Libourne, Jean-Marie Goizet defended his law thesis on June 10, crowning a university career interrupted… in 1960.
At 89 years old, Jean-Marie Goizet finally obtained his precious sesame. In Lussac, in Gironde, his student life seemed to have been settled for a long time. A notary for decades, retired in the mid-1990s, he had since devoted himself to the family vineyards. Nothing suggested that in the early 2020s, the former private law student would return to law school, where he had completed his studies more than sixty years earlier. “I had given up because I was entering professional life. While rummaging through boxes, I came across my writings from the time. And there, I said to myself: I didn’t do that for nothing, I’m going to get back into it.”he says. “I regretted never having finished this thesis and not being a doctor of law, colleagues were… I was jealous of them!”he slips, amused.
In 1960, Jean-Marie Goizet began a thesis entitled “Glass, a modern construction material, and the easements of the Civil Code”. “I started this thesis at the end of my studies, it was one of my teachers who gave me this subject”he remembers. In 2020, he therefore presented his first draft to a professor of private law at the faculty of law and political science at the University of Bordeaux. “He told me that the subject was not covered enough, and that I had not delved deep enough into the issue. I could keep the broad outlines of my work, but I had to deepen it” The subject then becomes: “Glass, construction material and the law”an enriched and updated version, notably integrating legal aspects unknown in the 1960s. “I had to do a lot of research on planning rights and construction rights. Environmental law did not exist at the time. I became a student again!”he smiles.
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“There were moments of doubt”
What followed were 6 years of hard work, surveying documents and archives at the university library. “There were moments of doubt, I had to be very rigorous, particularly on the submission dates”admits the nonagenarian. Then comes the long-awaited moment, the grand oral… In front of a jury of researchers, last June. “I was a little stressed! We are always afraid of a trick question!” Finally, Jean-Marie Goizet received the long-awaited distinction. At the end of the ceremony, he savors. He is called on stage alongside… the youngest doctor in the class. “It earned me a lot of applause”he says, still touched. The new graduate celebrated his 90th birthday in September. “It would have been even classier to have the doctorate at 90!”he jokes.
His work, matured over two periods, covers more than 500 pages. A quote from the French poet and resistance fighter Claude Aveline is written at the opening, on the flyleaf: “Don’t think you’ve taken the wrong route when you haven’t gone far enough.” A sentence that perfectly sums up his journey.
