Dominique de Villepin
Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 31 May 2005 to 17 May 2007 under President Jacques Chirac.
In his career working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, De Villepin rose through the ranks of the French right as one of Chirac's protégés. He came into the international spotlight as Minister of Foreign Affairs with his opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, one year after his appointment to the office, which culminated with a speech to the United Nations. Before his tenure as prime minister, he also served as Minister of the Interior.
After being replaced by François Fillon as prime minister, De Villepin was indicted in connection with the Clearstream affair; he was subsequently cleared of charges of complicity in allowing false accusations to proceed against presidential rival Nicolas Sarkozy regarding bribes paid on a sale of warships to Taiwan. De Villepin enjoyed a modest return to public favour for his public critique of President Sarkozy's style of "imperial rule".
De Villepin has written poetry, a book about poetry, and several historical and political essays, along with a study of Napoleon. He is an honorary member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.
Early life and education
Villepin was born in Rabat, Morocco, and spent some time in Venezuela, where his family lived for four years. He then lived in the United States, and has said that he "grew up" there. During his teenage years, "the 'Beat generation' movement left its mark on me, so did the hippie movement". He was inspired by Jack Kerouac and other American poets. He graduated from the Lycée Français de New York in 1971. He has three children: Marie, Arthur, and Victoire.Contrary to what his surname suggests, Villepin is not from an aristocratic background. His ancestors added the particle "de" to the family name. His great-grandfather was a colonel in the French army, his grandfather was a board member for several companies, and his father Xavier de Villepin was a diplomat and a member of the Senate. Villepin speaks French, English and Spanish.
When his mother died, Villepin gave a eulogy "full of the grandest and most sonorous cadences of the French language", wrote The Independent in 2010. He "spoke of his mother's passionate belief in the greatness and the destiny of France, and, implicitly, the greatness and destiny of her son". One mourner stated that he seemed to speak "of France and of himself as being the same thing".
Career
Diplomat
Villepin studied at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris and went on to the École nationale d'administration, France's highly selective post-graduate school which trains its top civil servants. Villepin also holds degrees in Civil law and French literature from the universities of Panthéon-Assas and Paris X Nanterre. At the end of his studies, he completed his military service as a naval officer on board the Aircraft Carrier Clemenceau. Villepin then entered a career in diplomacy. His assignments were:- Advising Committee on African affairs
- The French embassy in Washington, D.C., as premier secrétaire until 1987 and then deuxième conseiller
- The embassy in New Delhi, as deuxième conseiller until 1990 and then premier conseiller
- Foreign Ministry's top adviser on Africa
Early political positions
Villepin then became director of Chirac's successful 1995 presidential campaign and was rewarded with the key job of Secretary-General of the Élysée Palace during Chirac's first term as President of the Republic. He advised the president to hold an early general election in 1997, while the French National Assembly was overwhelmingly dominated by the president's party. This was a risky gamble, and Chirac's party went on to lose the elections. Villepin offered Chirac his resignation afterwards, but it was turned down. Villepin's flawed advice on the election increased the perception among many politicians on the right that Villepin had no experience or understanding of grassroots politics, and owed his enviable position only to being Chirac's protégé.
Villepin has had an uneasy relationship with the members of his own political side. He has in the past made a number of demeaning remarks about members of parliament from his own party. In addition, the mutual distaste between Villepin and Nicolas Sarkozy, head of the Union for a Popular Movement majority party, is well known.
Foreign minister
He was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by Chirac in the cabinet of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin at the beginning of Chirac's second term in 2002.During the 2004 coup d'état in Haiti, Villepin obtained the backing of the United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in his bid to oust Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power.
Villepin's most famous assignment as Chirac's foreign minister was opposing the U.S. plan to invade Iraq, giving France a leading role in the grouping of countries such as Germany, Belgium, Russia and China that opposed the invasion. The speech he gave to the UN to block a second resolution allowing the use of force against Saddam Hussein's regime received loud applause.
During mid-2003 Villepin organized the Opération 14 juillet that attempted to rescue his former student, Ingrid Betancourt, who was being held by FARC rebels in Colombia. The operation failed, and because he had neither informed Colombia, Brazil, nor President Chirac of the mission, it resulted in a political scandal.
Interior minister
During the cabinet reshuffle that made Nicolas Sarkozy Finance Minister, Villepin was appointed to replace him as interior minister on 31 March 2004.His actions against radical Islam included mandatory courses for Muslim clerics, notably in the French language, in moderate Muslim theology and in French secularism: laïcité, Republican principles and the law. While Sarkozy created the French Council of the Muslim Faith as the official representative of Muslims in France, Villepin would have preferred a "Muslim foundation", in which mosque-based representatives would be balanced by secular Muslims.
He also cracked down on radical Muslim clerics, causing an uproar when he tried to expel Abdelkader Bouziane, an imam alleged to have said to the press that, according to Ancient Islamic texts, adulterous people could be whipped or stoned. When the decision to expel him was overturned by the courts, because the journalistic reporting of LyonMag was deemed biased, Villepin pushed a change of the law through Parliament, and Bouziane was sent home.
Prime Minister of France
President Chirac was at one point thought to have turned his eye on Villepin as a possible successor, assuming that he himself would not enter the 2007 presidential contest. However, Nicolas Sarkozy was chosen to represent the centre-right UMP party.On 29 May 2005, French voters in the referendum on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe turned down the proposed document by a wide margin. Two days later, Raffarin resigned and Chirac appointed Villepin as Prime Minister of France.
Villepin's cabinet
In an address to the nation, Chirac had declared that the new cabinet's top priority would be to curb unemployment, which was consistently hovering above 10%, calling for a "national mobilization" to that effect.Villepin's cabinet was marked by its small membership, and its hierarchical unity: all members had the rank of Minister, and there were no Secretaries of State, the lowest cabinet member rank. The aim of this decision was for the cabinet to form a close-knit and more efficient team to combat unemployment.
The economy was growing sluggishly and a significant drop in unemployment was yet to be seen. Villepin's aim was therefore to restore the French people's trust in their government, an achievement for which he publicly set himself a deadline of a hundred days from the appointment of cabinet.
Another issue was the European Constitution, rejected by France and the Netherlands in referendums.
After Pope Benedict XVI was widely chastized for appearing to criticize Islam in a speech on 12 September 2006, French author Robert Redeker came to the pontiff's defense, in response to which he received death threats that forced him and his family to go into hiding. Villepin commented that "everyone has the right to express their opinions freely – at the same time that they respect others, of course". The lesson of this episode, according to Villepin, was "how vigilant we must be to ensure that people fully respect one another in our society".
Some had speculated that Villepin, with his diplomatic experience and the prestige associated with the job of prime minister, would negotiate a new treaty with the European Union, while Sarkozy would run the country at home. However, Villepin obtained favorable reviews from the press and temporarily increased popularity in polls. In particular, he was increasingly cited as a possible presidential candidate for 2007, although Nicolas Sarkozy had publicly stated that he himself was giving considerable attention to that election. Villepin and Sarkozy initially avoided any open division.
Villepin declared that lowering unemployment was the number one objective of his government. He, as well as the UMP party, believed that France's workforce rules were too rigid and discouraged employment, and that some liberalizing reforms were necessary in order to "correct" the French social model.
On 2 August 2005 he issued ordinances establishing a new kind of work contract for small enterprises, with fewer guarantees than ordinary contracts. While Villepin's measures would surely have been approved by his wide UMP majority in Parliament. Villepin said the government needed to act fast, especially when Parliament was going on its summer recess.
On 16 January 2006 he announced a similar kind of work contract for young people. The parliament approved on 8 February. Subsequently, students started to protest. This wave of protest eventually forced the government to give in. Although the law on the CPE is formally still valid, the government promised to hinder its application and initiated a new legal initiative which will abolish the key points of the CPE. During the protests, Villepin was widely perceived as stubborn and arrogant. As a consequence, his popularity rates went down rapidly and he was no longer regarded as a serious contender for the 2007 presidential election.
Another major issue in Villepin's government was the state of the national budget. France runs high deficits, which run afoul of the rules set in the EU Maastricht Treaty. Villepin's margin of maneuver in that respect was extremely slim.