Arthur De Guignes

Arthur De Guignes (5 October 1979-29 September 2028) was the president of New France from 2020 to 2025. During his time as president he introduced great economic reforms, created the region of Antignonville, and made the now-famous De Guignes Act, making skiing resorts completely illegal in the Barboise Valley, however, he is most famous for having created the Conseil National de la Securité, a anti-terrorism militia actively operating against the Free People of Côte d’Orsainne, a separatist terrorist group.

## Presidency

### Creating the Region of Antignonville

In January of 2022 problems with international trade arose as Antignonville, a coastal city in Puibel, had different rules for trade than the region of Puibel, and this crisis caused great poverty as well as restricted trade from booming, so on the 21th of February 2022, on the city's creation celebration De Guignes met with Pierre Larcher, then mayor of Antignonville, and Martha Lemaître, the region governor of Puibel to create an agreement. De Guignes proposed to give Antignonville independence as a region on one condition, that they had to pay a tax to Puibel every month, and at first this agreement, dubbed the Antignonville Agreement by the press, was highly unpopular in rural areas of Puibel, but on the 6th of March Lemaître died of breast cancer, and was replaced by Édouard Clérico, her regional deputy, as interim. At first Clérico, like his predecessor, refused the agreement, but on the 19th of March, faced with his approval ratings decreasing in Antignonville, the largest city of the region, where the majority of the city wanted independence, agreed, and on the 23rd of March the agreement was signed by both parties, however, it still remains controversial, with both sides claiming it had benefits and downsides.

### Creating the Conseil National de la Securité

On the 17th of September 2023 members of the FCPO assassinated a judge in Puibel, and following this national incident De Guignes decided to crackdown on separatist terrorist groups in the country like the FCPO or the Bou Casseau by creating the Conseil National de la Securité on the 25th of September 2023, a decision which was almost unanimously approved by the High, Medium and Low Orders. De Guignes put Gilles Celice, a former lieutenant in the Intelligence, the country's surveillance agency, as head  of the agency, however, two days after the foundation of the Conseil National de la Securité, on the 27th of September 2023 armed gunmen attempted to assassinate Celice while his convoy was passing through the town of Loigne, but failed and two of them were arrested, one of them killed.

### Created a Regional Crisis

On the 2nd of January 2020 Thierry Mondraux won the regional election against Isaac Laffitte and was put in power as the regional governor of Champe, however, on the 19th documents were leaked by an anonymous source indicating that Mondraux had frauded the election as more voting ballots were counted on the election results than during the two months election period, and eventually, on the 28th Mondraux was arrested, and under police pressure admitted to frauding by bribing officials in charge of counting ballots, and agreed to testify against his partners in crime. As the constitution states when a regional governor dies, is killed, or arrested in Mondraux’s case he is to be replaced by his regional deputy in interim until the next election, however, in this case Laffitte, the regional deputy, refused to take the job of regional governor and retired from politics altogether upon learning this. This forced Arthur De Guignes, the then-president of New France to assign Pierre Girault, the former mayor of Chances, and the only politician willing to take the job back then, however within months Girault led the region into authoritarianism, imposing strict taxes and limiting civil rights, and caused a financial crisis within the region itself. On the 16th of March Girault ordered members of the Brigade Anti-Emeute to open fire on civilians, an order which they refused, and upon learning of this De Guignes led military forces into Champe to retake it, however, Girault had payed mercenaries, mainly from the Syrian civil war, to defend him, and so this caused the Champe War, which began when Syrian mercenaries and forces loyal to Girault opened fire on government troops at the Champe-Ligranny frontier. After two months of fighting and most of his forces defeated on the 19th of May Girault surrendered, and he, along with his remaining forces were arrested, however, the short war had left the region scarred, and with no one to take the position of regional governor, Laffitte came back into politics and was assigned regional governor by interim, and would eventually go on to win the elections, staying for a second term.

### Making Skiing Resorts Illegal in the Barboise Valley

On the 4th of January 2025 De Guignes passed the De Guignes Law against skiing in protected areas, known more simply as the De Guignes Act, rendering the construction of skiing resorts completely illegal in the Barboise Valley. The high concentration of virgin mountains in the Barboise Valley caused skiing tycoons to build resorts in protected areas, causing avalanches on villages at the bottom of the valley as well as destroying the natural environment. This, however, caused a significant decrease in tourism in the region, and a particular Belgian business tycoon, Frank De Meulemeester, was arrested, as it had been found that De Meulemeester had bribed local government officials to illegally build resorts on protected lands, however, De Meulemeester refused to testify and he had to be free under threat of sanctions by France and Belgium.

### Retirement Before Mandatory End - 23rd October 2025

On the 4th of October 2025 De Guignes announced that he would be retiring but he never specified why. Many people proposed that he wait until the end of the year (his mandatory presidency end) but he refused and so on the 23rd of October 2025 he retired and Jean-Marc Cormier was elected in his place.

## Life

### Death

De Guignes was traveling aboard the Gorovia Express to Caleji, the country's capital, on the 28th of September 2028 when the bridge holding the train he was in collapsed and fell off the cliff which was holding it. De Guignes' body was later recovered a day later, along with the body of his sister, Claudia, with the official cause of death being later cited as blunt force trauma. According to his wife he was traveling to Gorovia on a diplomatic mission to meet Goran Vukojević, the country's president, although the reason why has never been made public