Philippe Douste-Blazy

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Philippe Douste-Blazy (2012).

Philippe JG Douste-Blazy (born January 1, 1953 in Lourdes ) is a French politician ( UDF , UMP ). He was Mayor of Lourdes from 1989 to 2000 and Mayor of Toulouse from 2001 to 2004 . 1993–95 and again 2004–05 he was Minister of Health, 1995–97 Minister of Culture. From June 2005 to May 2007 he was France's Foreign Minister under Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin . From 2008 to 2017 he was Associate Secretary General of the United Nations .

Life

Philippe Douste-Blazy was born in Lourdes in 1953, the son of Louis Douste-Blazy, a professor of medicine and a member of the Academic Council. In 1982 he completed his medical studies in Toulouse and then worked as a cardiologist in Lourdes and Toulouse. As part of his professional activity, he became a member of the Association of Cardiologists of France. In 1988 he took over a professorship for medicine in Toulouse; The focus was on epidemiology , health economics and preventive measures ( prevention ). In 1989 he was elected head of the Association for Research into Cholesterol Problems.

In the same year he began his career as a politician. As a member of the Christian Democratic Center des démocrates sociaux (CDS), which was part of the civic party alliance Union pour la démocratie française (UDF), he was elected mayor of Lourdes. In the same year he won a seat in the European Parliament as a candidate for the CDS-affiliated list Le Center pour l'Europe . There he belonged to the Christian Democratic EPP Group , was a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and of the Joint Assembly of the Agreement between the ACP and the EEC .

In the parliamentary elections in March 1993 he won a seat in the National Assembly , where he represented a constituency of the Hautes-Pyrénées department , in which Lourdes is located. He then resigned from the European Parliament. From 1993 to 1995 he was Deputy Minister of Health in Cohabitations - Cabinet Balladur . In 1994 he was elected a member of the General Council of the Hautes-Pyrénées department. In December 1994 he also became Secretary General of the CDS under the party leader François Bayrou . In addition, he was press spokesman for the French government from January to May 1995 .

After Jacques Chirac was elected President, Douste-Blazy became Minister for Culture in the Juppé I cabinet in May 1995 and remained that way (also in Juppé's second government ) until June 1997. In November 1995, the CDS merged with the smaller Parti social-démocrate to form the Force démocrate . In this party, too, Douste-Blazy subsequently acted as general secretary, while Bayrou remained party chairman. In June 1998 Douste-Blazy von Bayrou took over the chairmanship of the UDF in the National Assembly, which he led until 2001. At the end of 1998, the UDF changed from a loose party alliance to a unified party (Nouvelle UDF) , and the Force démocrate then dissolved.

Secretary of State Douste-Blazy with his American counterpart Condoleezza Rice (2005)

As the successor to his party colleague Dominique Baudis , Douste-Blazy was elected mayor in the local elections in Toulouse in March 2001 with 41.6% in the first ballot and 55.1% in the runoff election. After a change of constituency , he was then - also as successor to Baudis' - elected member of the Haute-Garonne Department in the National Assembly (re-elected in the regular parliamentary election the following year). In the course of the 2002 presidential election, Douste-Blazy moved from the UDF to the center-right collecting party Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP) , initiated by Jacques Chirac, and became its first general secretary (until November 2004).

In March 2004 he became Minister for Solidarity, Health and Family in the Raffarin III cabinet . He gave up the mayor's office in Toulouse, but remained president of the Greater Toulouse Municipal Association until 2008 . From June 2, 2005 to May 18, 2007, Philippe Douste-Blazy was Foreign Minister in the government of Dominique de Villepin .

Douste-Blazy during the 2007 election campaign

Starting in February 2008, Douste-Blazy was an Associate Secretary General of the United Nations for nine years.

Quotes

  • “The French satirical magazine Le Canard enchaîné reported in its September 14th issue that French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was asked during his visit to the new Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem while carefully examining maps of destroyed Jewish communities in Europe I asked whether British Jews had not also been murdered. ” (Eng. “ The French satirical magazine Le Canard Enchaine reported in its September 14th issue that during the visit of French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy to the new Holocaust museum in Jerusalem's Yad Vashem on September 8, he asked - while perusing maps of European sites where Jewish communities had been destroyed - whether British Jews were not also murdered. " ), Avirama Golan: Haaretz investigates French FM's faux pas at Yad Vashem , Haaretz , September 19 2005
  • “The Foreign Minister speaks neither English, nor Spanish, nor any language other than French. He also does not speak the diplomatic language, which obliges you to weight the smallest comma before evoking the affairs of the world. ” (French: “ Le ministre des affaires étrangères ne parle pas l'anglais, ni l'espagnol, ni aucune autre Langue que le français. Il ne pratique pas non plus le langage diplomatique qui oblige à peser la moindre virgule avant d'évoquer les affaires du monde. ” ) (Raphaëlle Bacqué: Philippe Douste-Blazy,“ Mister Bluff ”au Quai d'Orsay , Le Monde , April 28, 2006)
  • “He confuses Taiwan with Thailand, allegedly smashes a hotel room and asks why no Jews were murdered in England during World War II. For his employees it is clear: Philippe Douste-Blazy is 'Mister Bluff'. ” (Hanns-Jochen Kaffsack: A laughing stock called Douste-Blazy , sueddeutsche.de , May 1st, 2006 2:11 pm)

Works

Web links

Commons : Philippe Douste-Blazy  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Douste-Blazy, Philippe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Douste-Blazy, Philippe JG
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French cardiologist and politician (CDS, UDF, UMP); Member of the National Assembly, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Lourdes