Valérie Pécresse

Valérie Pécresse 2016

Valérie Pécresse (born July 14, 1967 in Neuilly-sur-Seine , Hauts-de-Seine department ) is a French politician ( RPR , UMP , Les Républicains , Libres ). She was a member of the French National Assembly from 2002–2007 and 2012–2016 . From May 2007 to June 2011 she was Minister for Higher Education and Research in the government of François Fillon , and until May 15, 2012 she was Minister of the Budget. She has been President of the Regional Council of the Île de France since 2015 .

Life

Valérie Pécresse is the daughter of Dominique Roux (Professor of Economics / Management and - since January 2007 - President of the large company Bolloré Télécom). On August 6, 1994, she married Jérôme Pécresse , CEO of GE Renewable Energy (previously: Alstom and Imerys ). She is the mother of one daughter and two sons. She is committed to the Roman Catholic Church.

Valérie Pécresse was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a posh suburb of Paris, whose mayor was Nicolas Sarkozy for almost 20 years . She went to school first at the Collège Sainte-Marie de Neuilly, then at the Catholic private high school Sainte-Genevieve in Versailles . Exceptionally talented, she graduated from high school at the age of 16. After studying at the private university École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) and then at the national administration school École nationale d'administration ( ENA ), she held a high office in the French Council of State from 1992 to 1998.

Political career

Jacques Chirac made Valérie Pécresse a presidential advisor in 1998 and commissioned her with studies on, among other things, juvenile delinquency, urban politics, state reform, the Internet and problems of the information society. In 2002, the RPR MP from Yvelines and former minister in Alain Juppé's government , Franck Borotra , suggested that she apply for a seat in the National Assembly. In the election of 9./16. June 2002 she won the mandate for the 2nd constituency of the Yvelines department . Two years later she became spokeswoman for the UMP (on September 21, 2002, the RPR had officially dissolved and was incorporated into the UMP).

After Nicolas Sarkozy's election victory in 2007, she became the first French research and education minister, a position that until then had been a state secretariat for the Ministry of Education.

Pécresse with her predecessor Christine Lagarde (2010)

In June 2011 she succeeded Christine Lagarde as budget minister.

government

LRU

In the first few weeks after François Fillon entered the government , Précesse, who had never studied at a university herself, was tasked with a fundamental reform of the higher education system, that is, the "Law on the Freedom and Accountability of Universities (LRU)". The first draft met with rejection in the academic world. A second version was approved by the university presidents and the student association UNEF, which is close to the socialists . In autumn 2007, a protest movement against this law arose , which encouraged competition among universities and considerably strengthened the influence of university presidents. The left-wing opponents of the project spoke of a “mixture of feudality and neoliberalism”. After a few weeks, the protest movement fizzled out.

Researcher and university professor

In autumn 2008, Pecresse announced a reform of the collective bargaining and employment contracts for university lecturers and scientists. These should be subjected to stricter controls, and academic staff should take on more lectures. So far, France has had a balance between teaching time and research time (86 hours per year each). It took offense at the fact that controls should be the exclusive privilege of the university presidents. The opponents of the LRU law felt confirmed and were now supported by numerous colleagues. This reform, as well as the experience of the lecturers at the few universities that had been self-employed since January 2009, sparked another protest movement.

Nicolas Sarkozy's January 22 speech, in which he made fun of scientists and universities, accusing everyone of laziness and incompetence, shocked the academic community. Education Minister Xavier Darcos announced a reform of the state examinations for the teaching profession, which was also controversial. The trade unions and academic associations spoke of a concentrated ideological attack on the French educational system and called for the resignation of Valérie Pécresse, whose crisis management was also criticized within the UMP. She had to do without UMP pre-election events. On February 27, Valérie Pécresse announced the complete revision of her draft law, as requested by the trade unions and representatives of her own party. However, these changes were not enough to end the protest movement , which now demanded the abolition of the LRU law and all reforms.

Regional policy

Pécresse in the 2010 regional election campaign

In March 2009, Pécresse competed in the preselection of the conservative camp for the 2010 regional elections in the capital region Île-de-France against her government colleague, the UMP parliamentary group leader in the regional council, Roger Karoutchi . Despite the university crisis, the minister decided the fight for herself: She won the area code with 59.9% and thus became the UMP's top candidate. In the actual election their list was indeed the strongest force in the first ballot before the Parti socialiste of the incumbent Jean-Paul Huchon ; in the runoff election against Huchon, however, Pécresse lost 43.3%. Only in the Yvelines department , where Pécresse has its own constituency, was it just able to prevail. As the successor to Roger Karoutchi, she was parliamentary group leader of the UMP in the regional council after the election.

In the regional elections in December 2015, Pécresse ran again, this time at the head of a joint list of the bourgeois parties Les Républicains, UDI , MoDem and PCD . She won the election in the second ballot with 43.8% against Claude Bartolone (PS, 42.2%) and Wallerand de Saint-Just ( Front National , 14%). Since then she has been President of the Regional Council.

Since November 2018 she has also been President of the Grand Paris Aménagement , a public body for urban planning in Île-de-France.

Soyons libres

In July 2017 she founded Soyons libres (“Let's be free”) or Libres for short ! , initially as an internal party movement of the Républicains. So she appeared as a critic of party chairman Laurent Wauquiez . After the party's crash in the European elections , Pécresse left Les Républicains in June 2019. Libres then became an independent party.

Awards

• In 2008 she was reprimanded by the Académie de la Carpette anglaise for promoting the use of English in European institutions and universities.
• In 2015 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (Senegal).
• She has been a Knight of the Legion of Honor since 2019 .

Web links

Commons : Valérie Pécresse  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Valérie Pécresse: Et Dieu créa la femme ( Memento of the original from October 13, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the Nouvel Économiste of November 19, 2004: “Je suis catholique pratiquante. Mon catholicisme est sûrement à la racine de mon engagement politique. " 
2. ^ "Le Député UMP François Goulard demande le retrait du projet Pécresse" [1]
3. ^ "Second souffle pour le mouvement de contestation" [2]
4. ↑ "Pécresse remporte la primaire UMP face à Karoutchi" [3]
5. ^ Valérie Pécresse annonce sa démission des Républicains. In: Le Figaro , June 5, 2019.