Claude Malhuret

Claude Malhuret (born March 8, 1950 in Strasbourg ) is a French doctor and politician ( UDF , UMP , Agir ). He has been a member of the French Senate since 2014 . The former chairman of the French section of Doctors Without Borders was Mayor of Vichy from 1989 to 2017 and a member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1993 .

Medical profession and humanitarian commitment

Malhuret grew up as the son of a dermatologist and a pharmacist in Vichy . After completing his doctorate in medicine at the Sorbonne in Paris , he worked as an intern (internal des hôpitaux) in a hospital. From 1973-74 he did his military service as a senior doctor at two hospitals in Morocco as part of a French development aid project . In 1975 he worked as an epidemiologist for the World Health Organization (WHO) in India, where he helped isolate and treat the last few cases of smallpox in Asia.

In 1976 and 1977 he coordinated the medical teams of MSF in the Cambodian , Laotian and Vietnamese refugee camps in Thailand . Against the opposition of a co-founder of the organization, Bernard Kouchner , Malhuret was elected chairman of the French section of Doctors Without Borders ( Médecins Sans Frontières , MSF) in 1978 . Kouchner then left MSF. Malhuret headed the organization for eight years, during which time its budget grew from the equivalent of € 75,000 to € 150 million.

In 1999 , together with his doctor colleague Laurent Alexandre, Malhuret founded Doctissimo.fr , the largest French-language information portal for medical topics on the Internet. From 2006 to 2014, Malhuret was Director of Ethical Development at Korian , a nursing home operator .

Political career

Malhuret was a representative of the 1968 student movement , but distanced himself from left-wing ideologies in the face of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia and the Derg massacres in Ethiopia . In 1984 Malhuret founded the organization Liberté sans Frontières (“Freedom without Frontiers”), which opposes left development theories and totalitarian regimes in the Third World. This was also joined by François Fejtő , Jean-François Revel , Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Alain Besançon . At the suggestion of Alain Madelin of the Parti Républicain (PR) was Malhuret 1986-1988 Secretary of State for Human Rights in Cohabitations - Cabinet Chirac II .

As a representative of the PR, which belonged to the civic party alliance Union pour la démocratie française (UDF), he was a member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1993 . There he sat in the liberal faction . He was a delegate for relations with Japan and was a member of the Political Affairs Committee from 1989–90 and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media from 1992–93 . In 1989 he was elected mayor of Vichy; He was re-elected in 1995, 2001, 2008 and 2014. The revitalization and modernization of the city and the entire region were the focus of his work. From 1993 to 1997 he was a member of a constituency of the Allier département in the National Assembly , where he belonged to the UDF parliamentary group.

From 2002 Malhuret belonged to the center-right collecting party Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP). From 2004 to 2014 he was a member of the Auvergne Regional Council . Malhuret was elected to the French Senate in 2014 to represent Allier. There he was a member of the Committee on Foreign and Defense Policy. He was also President of the Vichy Communauté community association from 2014 to 2017 . After the restriction of the number of offices in France, he had to choose between the mayor's office and his Senate mandate in 2017 and opted for the latter.

In October 2017 he left the parliamentary group of Les Républicains (successor party to the UMP) and became chairman of the new parliamentary group Les Indépendants - République et territoires . A month later he participated (alongside Franck Riester and Fabienne Keller ) in the founding of the Agir party , a split from Les Républicains, which works with the government of President Emmanuel Macron . He is one of the vice-leaders of that party. Malhuret is now a member of the Senate Committee on Culture, Education and Communication and is vice-chair of the delegation on women's rights and equal opportunities.

Web links

• Entry on Claude Malhuret in the European Parliament 's database of MEPs

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Claude Malhuret, Maire de 1989 à 2017. Ville de Vichy.
2. ↑ Biography of Claude MALHURET , Lisez!
3. ^ Entry on Claude Malhuret in the European Parliament 's database of representatives
4. ^ M. Claude Malhuret, Sénateur de l'Allier (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes) , Sénat.