Alain Richard
Richard in 2018
Minister of Defence
In office
3 June 1997 – 7 May 2002
Prime MinisterLionel Jospin
Preceded byCharles Millon
Succeeded byMichèle Alliot-Marie
Senator for Val-d'Oise
In office
1 October 2011 – 2 October 2023
In office
2 October 1995 – 4 July 1997
Member of the National Assembly
for Val-d'Oise
In office
3 April 1978 – 1 April 1993
Preceded byMichel Poniatowski
Succeeded byChristian Gourmelen
Constituency1st (1978–1986)
At-large (1986–1988)
2nd (1988–1997)
Mayor of Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône
In office
19 December 2002 – 19 October 2017
Preceded byAndrée Salgues
Succeeded byLaurent Linquette
In office
20 March 1977 – 4 July 1997
Preceded byArmand Lecomte
Succeeded byJean-Louis Linquette
Personal details
Born (1945-08-29) 29 August 1945
Paris, France
Political partyUnified Socialist Party (1962–1974)
Socialist Party (1974–2017)
Renaissance (2017–present)
EducationLycée Henri-IV
Alma materSciences Po
École nationale d'administration

Alain Richard (French pronunciation: [alɛ̃ ʁiʃaʁ]; born 29 August 1945) is a French politician who served as Minister of Defence from 1997 to 2002. A former member of the Socialist Party (PS), he joined La République En Marche! (LREM, later renamed Renaissance, RE) in 2017.

A member of the National Assembly for Val-d'Oise from 1978 to 1993, Richard was elected to the Senate in 1995 before he was appointed as Minister of Defence in the government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. He returned to the Senate in 2011, holding a seat until 2023.

Early life and education

Richard received his Baccalauréat at the Lycée Henri-IV. He is an alumnus of Sciences Po and the École nationale d'administration (ÉNA).

Political career

Early career

Richard was first elected as Mayor of Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône in 1977. In 1981, he was selected to be one of the first young leaders of the French-American Foundation.[1]

A member of the Socialist Party (PS), Richard was elected to the National Assembly in the 1978 election. During his time in Parliament, he focused on the national budget.[2]

Minister of Defence, 1997–2002

Elected to the Senate in the 1995 election, Richard was appointed Minister of Defence in the government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin two years later by President Jacques Chirac.[3] During his time in office, he was in charge of implementing a plan that Chirac set in motion in 1996 to reduce the French Armed Forces' establishment across Africa to 350,000 uniformed personnel, from 500,000, by 2002.[4] Notably, he closed a key military base in the north of the Central African Republic and reduced forces at a second, in Bangui, in 1997.[5] Also under his leadership, the government completed the destruction of its stock of land mines in accordance with the 1997 Ottawa Convention.[6]

Richard also oversaw the transition resulting from France's 1996 decision to suspend peacetime military conscription and move to an all-volunteer professional army; President Chirac formally announced the end of compulsory military service[7] in 2001.

Dismissing doubts about France's support for NATO in Kosovo after French officer Pierre-Henri Bunel was charged with passing bombing plans to Serbia, Richard and Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine offered in 1998 to lead the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR).[8]

In January 2001, Richard made a submission about the Mitterrand–Pasqua affair – a controversial arms-trafficking case against Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of François Mitterrand – several weeks after magistrates had started criminal proceedings about the deal handled by Pierre Falcone's Paris-based company, Brenco International.[9]

Seen as an ally of Jospin, Richard left office when Jean-Pierre Raffarin became Prime Minister following the 2002 election.[10]

Return to the Senate, 2011–2023

Richard went back to his initial position as Mayor of Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, before regaining a seat in the Senate in the 2011 election. In the Socialist Party's 2011 primaries, he endorsed Martine Aubry as the party's candidate for the 2012 presidential election.[11]

In the Senate, Richard held one of its vice presidencies from 2022 to 2023, under the leadership of its president Gérard Larcher. He was a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs.[12] In addition to his committee assignments, Richard chaired the Senate's Taiwan friendship group. In this capacity, he visited Taiwan in 2015, 2018 and 2021, including meetings with President Tsai Ing-wen.[13]

Richard was reelected to a second full term in the Senate in 2017, this time as a member of the liberal La République En Marche! (LREM), the party founded by Emmanuel Macron in 2016. He ran again for reelection in 2023 but was defeated by two votes. As of his departure from the Senate, he remains a municipal councillor of Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône.[14]

Honours

References

  1. ↑ "Young Leaders". French-American Foundation. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  2. ↑ Joseph Fitchett (18 June 1997), Waste Threatens French Arms' Projects, Audit Says International Herald Tribune.
  3. ↑ Craig R. Whitney (5 June 1997), New Cabinet Is Announced In France The New York Times.
  4. ↑ Craig R. Whitney (25 July 1997), France Snips at the Old Ties That Bind It to Africa The New York Times.
  5. ↑ France Confirms Pullout The New York Times, 1 August 1997.
  6. ↑ France Scraps Land Mines The New York Times, 21 December 1999.
  7. ↑ Paris, Ian Phillips (28 May 1996). "Conscription drummed out as France gets professional". The Independent.
  8. ↑ Craig R. Whitney (6 November 1998), France Offers To Lead Force Sent to Kosovo With Monitors The New York Times.
  9. ↑ Joseph Fitchett (28 June 2001), Court Dismisses Arms-Trafficking Case Against Mitterrand Son International Herald Tribune.
  10. ↑ "Alain Richard : ministre de la Défense". L'Humanité (in French). France. Archived from the original on 14 May 2010. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  11. ↑ Primaire PS: 39 sénateurs PS apportent leur soutien à Aubry Le Point (in French), 13 October 2011.
  12. ↑ Alain Richard, Senate of France.
  13. ↑ Ben Blanchard (7 October 2021), Taiwan will ensure regional peace, president tells French senators Reuters.
  14. ↑ Élections sénatoriales dans le Val-d’Oise : Alain Richard battu à 78 ans, la fin d’une ère politique Le Parisien (in French), 26 September 2023.
  15. ↑ Yeh, Su-ping; Chiang, Yi-ching (7 October 2021). "President Tsai confers medal on visiting French Senator Alain Richard". Central News Agency. Retrieved 7 October 2021. Republished as: "French senator awarded for building friendship ties". Taipei Times. 8 October 2021. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
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