Laurent Saint-Martin
Laurent Saint-Martin is a French politician who served as Minister delegate for Foreign trade and French living abroad in the government of Prime Minister François Bayrou from 2024 to 2025. He previously served briefly as Minister Delegate for the Budget and Public Accounts in the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier from September to December 2024. A member of Renaissance, he has also held a seat in the Regional Council of Île-de-France since 2021.
Prior to his appointment to the government, Saint-Martin served as Director General of Business France from 2023 to 2024.
Saint-Martin represented the 3rd constituency of the Val-de-Marne department in the National Assembly from 2017 to 2022 as a member of La République En Marche!.
Political career
From 2009 until 2012, Saint-Martin was a member of the Socialist Party. However, he was not actively involved in politics before he joined La République En Marche! in 2016.In the 2017 legislative election, Saint-Martin was elected to the National Assembly, where he represented the 3rd constituency of Val-de-Marne. He succeeded Roger-Gérard Schwartzenberg of the Radical Party of the Left. In Parliament, Saint-Martin served as a member of the Finance Committee. In addition to his committee assignments, he was part of the French-Peruvian Parliamentary Friendship Group.
In late 2018, Saint-Martin was offered to join the government of Prime Minister Édouard Philippe but declined a post as Secretary of State at the Ministry of the Economy and Finance under the leadership of Bruno Le Maire. In June 2019, Philippe entrusted him with a mission to reform the national system for the identification, seizure and confiscation of criminal assets. From 2020, Saint-Martin served as the Parliament's lead rapporteur on the annual budget of France; he succeeded Joël Giraud.
Within his party, Saint-Martin became a member of the executive board in 2019. In that capacity, he was entrusted alongside Guillaume Chiche for the party's policy planning.
In early 2021, Saint-Martin emerged as the frontrunner in the race to lead the La République En Marche! campaign in Île-de-France during that year's regional elections and to potentially succeed Valérie Pécresse as President of the Regional Council of Île-de-France. With only 9.62 percent of the vote, he ultimately lost against Pécresse but was elected as a regional councillor.
In the 2022 legislative election, Saint-Martin ran for reelection to the National Assembly but [List of MPs who lost their seat in the 2022 French legislative election|2022 French legislative election|lost his seat] to Louis Boyard of La France Insoumise.