Henri Jibrayel ( ar, هنرى چيبرايل; born on in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

) is a French politician with Lebanese and

Assyrian Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...

roots. His father was an

survivor of the

Assyrian genocide The Sayfo or the Seyfo (; see below), also known as the Assyrian genocide, was the mass slaughter and deportation of Assyrian / Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan province by Ottoman forces and some Kurdish t ...

, that took place in present-day Turkey, who had taken refuge with his parents in a

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

slum. He married in 1938 a Lebanese Maronite young woman from Bkassine (near

Jezzine Jezzine ( ''Jizzīn'') is a town in Lebanon, located from Sidon and south of Beirut. It is the capital of Jezzine District. Surrounded by mountain peaks, pine forests (like the Bkassine Pine Forest), and at an average altitude of 950 m (3 ...

), then joined the

Free French Forces __NOTOC__ The French Liberation Army (french: Armée française de la Libération or AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merging of the Armée d'Afrique with the prior Free French Forces (french: Forces françaises libres, l ...

after

De Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Governm ...

Appeal of 18 June The Appeal of 18 June (french: L'Appel du 18 juin) was the first speech made by Charles de Gaulle after his arrival in London in 1940 following the Battle of France. Broadcast to Vichy France by the radio services of the British Broadcasting Cor ...

. After the war, the family got the French naturalisation and was hosted by its new fatherland in a slum near Marseille. The father was sent in

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

till 1950 to repress the anticolonial insurgency, then again in

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

in one of France's colonial wars. In 1963, the family, including 8 children, tries a comeback in

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

, and settle in Ain al-Remmane, but this attempt led to a fiasco, and two years later the family turned back to Marseille, Henri left school at 15, became a crane driver, and afterwards entered the French ''Poste''. After being a trade-unionist at the ''Poste'', he became '' conseiller général'' for the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

in a Marseille ''canton'' and '' maire-adjoint'' in a Marseille '' secteur'' in 2001, then he was elected member of the

National Assembly of France The National Assembly (french: link=no, italics=set, Assemblée nationale; ) is the lower house of the bicameral French Parliament under the Fifth Republic, the upper house being the Senate (). The National Assembly's legislators are known a ...

on 17 June 2007 with 57.41% of votes (25.85% at the first round), so becoming one out of three metropolitan deputies with non-European family roots. He was defeated in the 2017 election by Saïd Ahamada of

La République En Marche! Renaissance (RE), previously known as La République En Marche ! (frequently abbreviated LREM, LaREM or REM; translated as "The Republic on the Move" or "Republic Forward"), or sometimes called simply En Marche ! () as its original name, is a l ...

. On 19 December 2014 he was accused of breach of trust and illegal acquisitions of interest regarding the payment of four small cruises he organised for retired people of Marseille, right after and right before elections. In August 2018, he was committed for trial for misappropriation of public funds and illegal acquisitions of interest. In September 2020, he was sentenced to thirty months of imprisonment, five years of deprivation of civic and civil rights (including ineligibility) and a fine of 30000 €.

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jibrayel, Henri 1951 births Living people Socialist Party (France) politicians French people of Assyrian descent French people of Lebanese descent Crane operators Deputies of the 13th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic Deputies of the 14th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic Scandals in France Political scandals in France