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Bruno Le Maire (born 15 April 1969) is a French politician. He served as the French Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fishing from 2009 to 2012.
Biography
Early life
Bruno Le Maire was born on 15 April 1969 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. He is a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, Sciences Po and the École nationale d’administration. He speaks French, English and German.
Career
From 2002 to 2004, he worked as an advisor to Dominique de Villepin in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2004, he moved to the Ministry of the Interior. In 2005, he became the political advisor to the Prime Minister. From 2007 to 2008, he was a member of the National Assembly of France, representing the Eure department. From December 2008 to 2009, he served as Secretary of State in charge of European Affairs in the François Fillon government.
Since 2008, he has served as a political advisor for the Union for a Popular Movement. He also serves as a council member of Evreux. In June 2009, he became the new Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fishing. During his tenure at the Ministry, he created a new framework to modernize French agriculture, food and fishing. He also hosted the G20 Agriculture summit in 2011, which resulted in the creation of AMIS (Agricultural Market Information System). The main objective of AMIS is to monitor the global agricultural market under a rotating presidency. An intervention Forum can be convoked if the presiding country judges it necessary.
On August 2012, he announced that he would be a candidate for the presidency of the Union for a Popular Movement, competing against former Prime Minister François Fillon, Secretary General Jean-François Copé and former Minister for Ecology Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet. He decided to develop a reformist line and to focus his campaign around four main axes:
- Enhancing European economic integration
- Strengthening French entrepreneurship and economy
- Going back to the values of respect and authority in society
- Renewing generations in political parties.
But he failed to obtain the necessary number of sponsors.
In November 2014, he obtained 29.8% of votes against Nicolas Sarkozy in the election for the presidency of Les Republicains (formerly UMP).
He has been considered as a serious challenger of the 2016 center-right primary as the polls suggested he could be third-placed but got a poor result with 2.4%.
Other activities
- European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), Member
- Hertie School of Governance, Member of the Board of Trustees
- Long-Term Investors Club, Member
- Permanent Platform of Atomium Culture, Member of the Advisory Board
- Members European Council on Foreign Relations.
Personal life
Le Maire is married to Pauline Doussau de Bazignan. They have four children.
Depiction in film
In the movie La conquête (The conquest), about Nicolas Sarkozy's career, he was played by Emmanuel Noblet.