Dominique de Villepin

Dominique de Villepin (1953- ), French diplomat and politician, Prime Minister of France (2005-2007). Villepin was born in Rabat, at that time the capital of the French protectorate of Morocco. His father, Xavier Galouzeau de Villepin, was a member of the French senate. Dominique de Villepin graduated from the École Nationale d'Administration in 1980. The same year he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, taking a special interest in Africa. Between 1981 and 1984 he also served in the Centre d’Analyse et de Prévision (Centre for Analysis and Forecasting). Villepin took up a post at the French embassy in Washington, D.C., where he served between 1984 and 1989, working as a policy adviser on the Middle East and as a press officer. In 1989 he transferred to the French embassy in New Delhi, and between 1992 and 1993 was deputy assistant for French and Malagasy affairs at the French Foreign Ministry. He continued his career at the Foreign Ministry as chief of staff to the foreign minister, Alain Juppé, between 1993 and 1995.

Although he has never held an elected political position, in 1977 Villepin joined the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), the Gaullist party created and led by Jacques Chirac. Villepin became an important protégé of Chirac, who was elected president of France in May 1995. With Chirac’s election, Villepin was given the influential post of secretary-general for the president’s office. Villepin was held by members of the RPR to have been responsible for Chirac’s decision to call early legislative elections in 1997. The elections went badly for the RPR, and a new Socialist government, led by Lionel Jospin, came to power. Nevertheless, Villepin remained one of Chirac’s closest advisers, and in 2002 was appointed as minister for foreign affairs. His term in office was dominated by the question of American policy towards Iraq (see War on Iraq). His address to the United Nations in February 2003, at which he called for peace through disarmament rather than military intervention, established Villepin as one the leading European critics of the Bush administration’s aggressive policy on Iraq.

In March 2004, Villepin was appointed minister of the interior. He was particularly concerned with eliminating the threat of Islamist terrorism in France (which has Europe’s largest Muslim population). To this end he introduced legislation to make it easier for the state to deport foreign clerics who make inflammatory statements while living in France. He also proposed that imams should be given an education in French values and institutions.

After Jean-Pierre Raffarin resigned as prime minister in May 2005, following the rejection in a referendum of the proposed constitution for the European Union, Villepin was appointed as his replacement. Among the most pressing challenges that Villepin faced was France’s high rate of unemployment (9.6 per cent in March 2006). Villepin’s government introduced legislation to make it easier for employers to lay off employees under the age of 26, in the hope that this would encourage job creation. However, in March 2006 huge demonstrations opposing the law were held in Paris, protesting that such legislation would simply serve to create a pool of easily disposable labour. Strike action followed in April and under public pressure Chirac announced that the new law on youth employment would be abandoned. After the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France in May 2007, Villepin was replaced as prime minister by François Fillon.

As well as his diplomatic and political careers, Villepin has also published poetry, a book about Napoleon I, Les Cent Jours ou l’esprit de sacrifice (2001), and a study of French history and politics, Le Cri de la gargouille (2002).