Raymond Eddé (; 15 March 1913 – 10 May 2000) was a Lebanese Maronite statesman who served his country for many years as a legislator and cabinet minister. He led the Lebanese National Bloc, an influential political party. The son of former President Émile Eddé, Raymond Eddé was himself a candidate for the presidency in 1958, and was proposed for the post on numerous subsequent occasions. He is remembered for having held consistent views, which he refused to compromise for the sake of political gain. His supporters called him "Lebanon's Conscience." He was a strong nationalist, who opposed the French Mandate, and later, Syrian, Israeli, and Palestinian military intervention in Lebanon. Early life Eddé was born in Alexandria, Egypt, where his father, a native of the town of Edde in the Byblos District and an opponent of Ottoman control of Lebanon, had taken refuge after being sentenced to death for subversion. In 1920, following the establishment of the French Mandate, Émile Eddé returned to Beirut with his wife, Laudi Sursock, and family. The young Raymond Eddé was educated at Jesuit schools and graduated with a law degree in 1934. Career Eddé succeeded his father, who died in 1949, as leader of the National Bloc. He was subsequently elected to the National Assembly from a Byblos constituency in 1953; except for a one-year break (1964–1965, when he lost his seat but subsequently recovered it in a by-election), he remained in parliament until 1992, when he decided to boycott an election held under Syrian auspices, an election that he considered to be gerrymandered and rigged. In the National Assembly, Eddé sponsored reforms in Lebanon's rent laws (in 1954) and banking (1956), laying the basis for the Swiss-style confidential banking system that proved to be a factor in Lebanon's explosive economic growth in the following decade. An unsuccessful candidate for the Presidency in 1958, Eddé was subsequently appointed to the Cabinet by President Fuad Chehab, with the portfolios of the Interior, Social Affairs, Labour, and Posts and Telecommunications. The following year, however, he had a public falling out with Chehab over what he saw as interference in political and electoral affairs by the Deuxième Bureau (Lebanon's military intelligence service), and resigned from the cabinet in protest. He led the parliamentary opposition to the regime of Chehab and of Charles Helou, his handpicked successor, throughout the 1960s. In 1968, Eddé's National Bloc joined the