Juppé, Alain Marie

Juppé, Alain Marie (1945- ), French centre-right politician, Prime Minister of France (1995-1997). Juppé was born on August 15, 1945, son of a small landowner, at Mont-de-Marsan in the Landes region. His intellectual gifts were obvious from an early age, and in 1962 he won a scholarship to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris. He continued his education at the École Normale Supérieure and the Paris Institute of Political Studies. From 1969 to 1970 he served in the French air force. He completed his education at the École Nationale d’Administration, and in 1972 he became Inspector of Finance.

Juppé entered politics in 1976 as an adviser and speechwriter to Jacques Chirac, then prime minister under President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, beginning a long and close association with Chirac. He rose swiftly in Chirac’s party, the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR; “Rally for the Republic”), and in the city administration of Paris, where Chirac was mayor. He was less successful in his native Landes region, suffering defeats in the 1978 national parliamentary elections and the 1979 local elections. He continued to accumulate posts in the RPR and the Paris administration, and was managing director of Chirac’s unsuccessful 1981 presidential campaign; however, it was only in March 1983 that he won his first electoral victory and secured the local power base that French politicians need when he was elected from Paris’s 18th district. In March 1986 he became minister of the budget and government spokesman in Chirac’s moderate right-wing government of “cohabitation” with the Socialist president, François Mitterrand. After Chirac’s defeat in the May 1988 presidential elections and the Socialists’ return to power, Juppé was elected deputy for Paris’s 18th district in June 1988, becoming the RPR’s general secretary the same month. In 1992 Juppé campaigned in favour of the controversial Treaty of Maastricht, establishing his credentials as a member of France’s “European” establishment. From 1993 to 1995 he served as minister of foreign affairs in a second centre-right “cohabitation” with Mitterrand, this time directed by Édouard Balladur as prime minister.

Juppé’s support for Chirac in the 1995 presidential contest between Chirac and Balladur, members of the same party, was rewarded when the victorious Chirac named him prime minister in May 1995. Juppé’s Cabinet included a number of female ministers in minor posts, but excluded such notable political veterans as Charles Pasqua and Simone Weil, despite their support for Chirac. In June 1995 Juppé became mayor of Bordeaux, his first electoral success in the Landes.

Juppé’s fortunes began to ebb amid signs of backtracking on Chirac’s campaign promises of reductions in taxes and strong offensives against unemployment. In September the pro-free market minister of finance, Alain Madelin, left Juppé’s Cabinet without explanation. His apparent use of patronage of office led to Juppé becoming the symbol of an increasingly unpopular ruling elite. Despite his growing unpopularity, Juppé became the RPR’s president in October 1995. On November 8, 1995, he suddenly resigned, then was immediately reappointed by Chirac, enabling him to reshuffle his Cabinet and confirm the president’s support: he then unveiled plans for reform of the ailing French social security system and reduction of the state deficit to meet the criteria for European monetary union by 1999. Later that month, strikes led by unions hostile to his plans erupted, forcing a dilution of the plans. Protests continued during 1996, with doctors striking in April over health service reform and demonstrations in May when Juppé called in the National Assembly for cutting excess in the public sector. His government survived confidence votes in June and October 1996, but strikes continued, with public-sector disruption throughout October, a paralysing nationwide strike of lorry drivers in November, and a public transport and railways strike in January 1997. By the spring of 1997, with the far-right National Front gaining in opinion polls and commentators warning of a national crisis similar to that of 1968, Juppé pressed Chirac to call an early general election, to be held in June. However, instead of having his mandate renewed as expected, Juppé and his government were defeated in the polls of May and June 1997 by a Socialist-led coalition under Lionel Jospin. In July 1997 Juppé lost the RPR leadership to the “Euro-sceptic” Philippe Séguin. In November 2002 he was elected president of the Union Pour la Majorité Presidentielle (UMP), the successor organization to the RPR that had coalesced around support for Chirac in that year’s presidential election.

In September 2003 Juppé went on trial for his alleged involvement in corrupt practices during his years as secretary-general of the RPR. It was claimed that illegal payments from government funds had been made to RPR workers. A guilty verdict was returned in January 2004, and Juppé received an 18 months’ suspended sentence and was barred from holding political office for ten years. He immediately announced that he would appeal against the sentence. In December an appeals court reduced the ban on Juppé holding office from ten years to just one year and cut the suspended sentence from 18 months to 14 months. After taking an academic position in Canada, Juppé returned to French politics in October 2006, when he was elected once again to the position of mayor of Bordeaux, from which he had been compelled to resign in 2004. Juppé’s political comeback seemed set to continue when Nicolas Sarkozy, on becoming president in May 2007, appointed him minister for ecology and sustainable development. However, after failing to win a seat in the National Assembly the following month, Juppé was obliged to give up these posts.