Ferdinand de Lesseps: A consul who went on to build the Suez Canal

Calle Fernando de Lesseps in Malaga city is located to the northwest of Calle Nueva, near the Plaza de la Constitución. Count Ferdinand de Lesseps was a French diplomat who is best known for initiating the construction of the Suez Canal.

However, he has a street named after him in Malaga because he was French consul in Malaga from 1840 to 1843 and lived in Churriana.

Ferdinand de Lesseps was born on 19 November 1805 in Versailles. His early years were spent in Italy where his father was consul. After returning to Paris for his education, in 1828 Lesseps was sent to Tunis as an assistant vice-consul, where his father was consul-general.

In 1839 Lesseps was appointed consul in Rotterdam and in the following year he was transferred to Malaga. In 1843 he was sent to Barcelona.

Lesseps' mother, Catherine de Grévignée, was from Malaga, the daughter of a Belgian merchant who had settled in the city and Antonia Gallegos Delgado, who was from Malaga.

Around 1849, during the Second Republic in Spain, Ferdinand introduced his Spanish cousin, the Countess of Montijo and her young daughter Eugenia, into the upper echelons of Parisian society. In 1853 Eugenia would become an empress by marrying Napoleon III.

Lesseps retired from the diplomatic service in 1951 and by then an old childhood friend, Said Pasha, had acceded the viceroyalty of Egypt. This gave him a new impulse to promote the creation of the Suez Canal, which eventually opened in November 1869.

Lesseps is also one of the founding fathers of the Alliance Française, along with Jules Verne, Louis Pasteur and other eminent French figures of the time. The alliance was established in 1883 and the international French organisation has had a branch in Malaga city since 1967.

On 11 June 11 1884, as head of the Franco-American Union, Lesseps presented the Statue of Liberty to the USA as a gift from France at a banquet held in honour of the Franco-American Union and in celebration of the completion of the statue.

Lesseps died in Guilly, France, on 7 December 1894. He is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

The proposal to name the street in Malaga after him came about on 20 October 1887.