Jean-Claude Duvalier of his father, François Duvalier (nicknamed "Papa Doc"), becoming the world's youngest president. Initially, Jean-Claude Duvalier resisted the dynastic arrangement that had made him Haiti's leader, having preferred that the presidency go to his older sister Marie-Denise Duvalier, and was content to leave substantive and administrative matters in the hands of his mother, Simone Ovide Duvalier, and a committee led by Luckner Cambronne, his father's Interior Minister, while he attended ceremonial functions and lived as a playboy. Duvalier was invested with near-absolute power by the constitution. He took some steps to reform the regime, by releasing some political prisoners and
Anti-Duvalier protest movement (CNG), under the leadership of Army Commander Henri Namphy, to rule the country after his exile. The Duvaliers settled in France and although lived comfortably, was denied a request of political asylum by the French authorities. Jean-Claude soon lost most of his wealth in his 1993 divorce with his wife. A private citizen, Jacques Samyn, unsuccessfully sued to expel Duvalier as an illegal immigrant (the Duvaliers were never officially granted asylum in France). Then, in 1998, a Haitian-born photographer, Gérald Bloncourt, formed a committee in Paris to bring Duvalier to trial. At the time, the French Ministry of the Interior