Jean Patrick Hennessy was a French politician.

Hennessy was born at Cherves-Richemont

Cherves-Richemont

Cherves-Richemont is a French commune in the Charente department in southwestern France.- Cherves :-Richemont:-Cherves-Richemont:-References:*...

 in the Charente

Charente

Charente is a department in southwestern France, in the Poitou-Charentes region, named after the Charente River, the most important river in the department, and also the river beside which the department's two largest towns, Angoulême and Cognac, are sited.-History:Charente is one of the original...

 département, son of Maurice Hennessy and his wife Jeanne, née Foussat. His very wealthy family, of Irish origin, were the proprietors of the Hennessy

Hennessy

Jas Hennessy & Co., or more simply Hennessy, is a world-leading cognac house with headquarters in Cognac, France. Today, the company of Jas Hennessy & Co...

 cognac

Cognac (drink)

Cognac , named after the town of Cognac in France, is a variety of brandy. It is produced in the wine-growing region surrounding the town from which it takes its name, in the French Departements of Charente and Charente-Maritime....

 business, now part of LVMH

LVMH

LVMH Moët Hennessy • Louis Vuitton S.A., better known as LVMH, is a French multinational luxury goods conglomerate headquartered in Paris, Île-de-France, France. The company was formed after the 1987 merger of fashion house Louis Vuitton with Moët Hennessy, a company formed after the 1971 merger...

. Jean and his brother James inherited their father's wealth, over one million French Francs, on his death in 1905.

Hennessy was elected to the French Chamber of Deputies in the French elections on 1924 for the Cartel des Gauches

Cartel des Gauches

The Cartel des gauches was the name of the governmental alliance between the Radical-Socialist Party and the socialist French Section of the Workers' International after World War I , which lasted until the end of the Popular Front . The Cartel des gauches twice won general elections, in 1924 and...

. In doing so, he continued the tradition begun by his great-grandfather Jacques Hennessy, an Orléanist

Orléanist

The Orléanists were a French right-wing/center-right party which arose out of the French Revolution. It governed France 1830-1848 in the "July Monarchy" of king Louis Philippe. It is generally seen as a transitional period dominated by the bourgeoisie and the conservative Orleanist doctrine in...

 deputy from 1824 to 1842, and his grand-uncle Auguste Hennessy, senator from 1876 to 1879. Hennessy was re-elected in the election of 1928

French legislative election, 1928

Legislative elections in France to elect the 14th legislature of the French Third Republic were held on 22 and 29 April 1928.-Popular Vote:-Parliamentary Groups:...

 and served as agriculture minister from 1928 to 1930, and then as French ambassador to Switzerland.

In the 1932 general election Hennessy was defeated by Henri Malet of the Democratic Republican Alliance

Democratic Republican Alliance

The Democratic Republican Alliance was a French political party created in 1901 by followers of Léon Gambetta, such as Raymond Poincaré who would be president of the Council in the 1920s...

. Out of parliament, he founded the Social-National Party

Social-National Party

The ' was a political party in France founded in 1933 by Jean Hennessy, a former cabinet minister. Hennessy, elected deputy for Nice in the Alpes-Maritimes was rarely active in the Independent Left parliamentary group. However, Hennessy was part of The Vichy 80 in 1940 which refused to give full...

 and was elected again as deputy for Alpes-Maritimes

Alpes-Maritimes

Alpes-Maritimes is a department in the extreme southeast corner of France.- History : was created by Octavian as a Roman military district in 14 BC, and became a full Roman province in the middle of the 1st century with its capital first at Cemenelum and subsequently at Embrun...

, sitting with the Independent Left

Independent Left

The Independent Left was a French parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies of France during the French Third Republic between 1932 and 1940...

 group in the Chamber of Deputies.

On 10 July 1940, at the joint session of the French parliament which granted extraordinary powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain

Philippe Pétain

Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...

, Hennessy was one of the 80 parliamentarians who opposed the measure. He died at Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

in Switzerland in 1944 where he had lived since 1941.