France Bučar was born on February 2, 1923, and passed away on October 21, 2015.
France was a Slovenian politician, legal expert and author. Between 1990 and 1992, he served as the first chairman of the freely elected Slovenian Parliament.
He was the one to formally declare the independence of Slovenia on June 25, 1991.
He is considered one of the founding fathers of Slovenian democracy and independence.
He is also considered, together with Peter Jambrek, the main author of the current Slovenian constitution.
Bučar was born in the small Upper Carniolan town of Bohinjska Bistrica in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, now in Slovenia.
After graduating from the St. Stanislaus Institute in Šentvid near Ljubljana, he enrolled in the University of Ljubljana, where he studied law.
After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, Bučar joined the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People.
In May 1942, he was arrested by the Italian Fascist authorities and sent to the Gonars concentration camp.
After the Italian armistice, he returned home, but was arrested by the Nazis.
In July 1944, he escaped and joined the Partisan resistance in southern Carinthia.
In 1944, he joined the Communist Party of Slovenia, after a guarantee that he could keep his Roman Catholic religious affiliation.
In May 1945, he was in the military unit that liberated Klagenfurt.
Francedied at age 92 in October 2015.