Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres

Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres in February 2006

Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres (born March 13, 1954 in Neuilly-sur-Seine , Hauts-de-Seine ) is a French politician ( UDF , UMP ). He was Minister of Culture and Communication from 2004 to 2007.

biography

He is a grandson of Henri Donnedieu de Vabres , who was a judge at the Nuremberg Trials . After graduating from the École nationale d'administration (ENA) in 1980 ( Voltaire graduation ), he embarked on a professional career in administration, with managerial posts, first at the level of the arrondissements, then as office manager of the prefect of the Indre-et-Loire department , Secretary-General of the Police Department of the Center-Val de Loire region from 1980 to 1981, Secretary-General of the Prefecture of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence from 1981 to 1982 and finally Head of the Administration of the Arrondissement of Château-Thierry from 1982 to 1985.

His political career began in the shadow of François Léotard as a representative within the Ministry of Culture, which he headed from 1986 to 1988, then as cabinet head for the Parti républicain (PR), of which Léotard was chairman. Donnedieu was inducted into the PR Politburo in 1990. At the same time, he was a member of the Center's regional council from 1986 to 2001 , chairman of the Union pour la démocratie française (UDF; 1986–1992), general rapporteur on budget issues (1986–1993) and vice-president of the regional council (1992–1998).

From 1993 to 1995 he held positions as a representative in the Defense Ministry under François Léotard as Minister of State, later as head of cabinet for the UDF party alliance, of which Léotard was chairman from 1996 to 1998. From 1997 to 2002 Donnedieu de Vabres was a member of the 1st constituency of Indre-et-Loire in the National Assembly . Run as a right-wing candidate in the elections for Mayor of Tours in March 2001, but was beaten by the Socialist candidate. But he won a seat on the local council.

During the campaign for the presidential elections in 2002, he distanced himself from the chairman of the UDF, François Bayrou , in order to support the candidacy of Jacques Chirac , to whose center-right rallying party Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP) he subsequently transferred. On May 7, 2002, he was accepted into the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin as Minister Associate for European Affairs (under Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin ) . In June 2002 he was re-elected as a member of the Indre-et-Loire department. In the subsequent cabinet reshuffle, however, he resigned from the government because he was involved in a judicial affair over covert financing practices of the former Republican Party. As a result, he was sentenced in 2004 by the Paris Criminal Chamber for money laundering to a fine of 15,000 euros, which did not result in him being prohibited from exercising election mandates.

In 2002 he became deputy general secretary of the UMP, the year after its press spokesman . At the end of March 2004 he became Minister for Culture and Communication in the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin and as such he was confirmed in the government of Dominique de Villepin on June 3, 2005 . He resigned from this position in May 2007.