Olivier Falorni (born 27 March 1972) is a French politician. He was elected to the French National Assembly on 17 June 2012, representing

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. Wi ...

in the 1st constituency of the department of

Charente-Maritime Charente-Maritime () is a department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region on the southwestern coast of France. Named after the river Charente, its prefecture is La Rochelle. As of 2019, it had a population of 651,358 with an area of 6,864 square kil ...

. He was re-elected in 2017 and again in 2022.

Early life

Falorni was born in

Rochefort Rochefort () may refer to: Places France * Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, in the Charente-Maritime department ** Arsenal de Rochefort, a former naval base and dockyard * Rochefort, Savoie in the Savoie department * Rochefort-du-Gard, in the Ga ...

on March 27, 1972, the son of a school teacher and an employee in the

Social Security system Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

. The Falorni family fled Fascist Italy in the Interwar period and settled in

in Laleu, a neighborhood of

. Falorni's grandfather, Gino Falorni, was a teacher and was a major figure in the local basketball team, where he served as a player, captain and coach between 1935 and 1954. After graduating from lycée Jean-Dautet in La Rochelle, Falorni enrolled at

Université de Bordeaux The University of Bordeaux (French: ''Université de Bordeaux'') is a public university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bordeaux, Dax, Gradignan, Périgueux, Pessac, and T ...

, where he graduated in 1995 with a Degree of in-Depth Studies in Contemporary History. Falorni got his first teaching job in 1997 and prior to his election, was working as a history and geography teacher at the Lycée professionnel Pierre Doriole in La Rochelle.

Early political career

In 1998 Falorni attended the summer school of 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 t ...

in La Rochelle. According to Falorni, it was here where he heard François Hollande speak and became a faithful supporter. Falorni joined the party in 1999 and became federal secretary of the party in 2004. In this role, Falorni organized the party's summer school from 2005 to 2011. In the

2001 French municipal elections Municipal elections were held in France on 11 and 18 March 2001. These elections were marked by a setback for the left and a victory for the right one year before the 2002 presidential election. However, the capital, Paris and the second larges ...

, Falorni was elected as a municipal councilor for La Rochelle on the list of Maxime Bono. At the 2008

Reims Congress The Reims Congress was the twenty-second national congress of the French Socialist Party (''Parti socialiste'' or PS), taking place from 14 to 16 November 2008 in the city of Reims in the Marne. Incumbent First Secretary François Hollande announ ...

of the

, Falorni supported the ''Clarity, courage, creativity'' motion supported by Francois Hollande, but voted against the ''Hope on the left, proud to be Socialist'' motion supported by Hollande's former partner and then Regional President

Ségolène Royal Marie-Ségolène Royal (; born 22 September 1953) is a French politician who was the Socialist Party candidate for the Presidency of France in the 2007 election. Royal was president of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council from 2004 to 201 ...

. This event led to a split between the two, and allowed

Martine Aubry Martine Louise Marie Aubry (; née Delors; born 8 August 1950) is a French politician. She was the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party (''Parti Socialiste'', or PS) from November 2008 to April 2012, and has been the Mayor (France), Mayo ...

to become federal secretary of the PS. In 2009, he helped found the club "Répondre à gauche", created by Stéphane Le Foll. During the 2010 French regional elections, Falorni again found himself at odds with Ségolène Royal, who sought to name a rival candidate as the PS candidate in Falorni's seat of

. Despite this, Falorni won the seat in the election, and was re-elected in 2017 and again in 2022. Despite supporting PS dissident Jean-François Fountaine in the

2014 French municipal elections The French municipal elections of 2014 were held on 23 March of that year with a second round of voting, where necessary, on 30 March to elect the municipal councils of France's communes. The first task of each newly constituted municipal council i ...

, Falorni became more critical of the new municipal administration. In September 2019, Falorni announced he would run against Fountaine in the 2020 French municipal elections. While Falorni received the most votes in the first round, he lost by 181 votes in the second round against the incumbent mayor. Elected as a member of the opposition, Falorni decided to resign his position.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Falorni, Olivier 1972 births Living people People from Rochefort, Charente-Maritime French people of Italian descent Politicians from Nouvelle-Aquitaine Socialist Party (France) politicians Radical Movement politicians Deputies of the 14th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic Deputies of the 15th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic University of Bordeaux alumni Members of Parliament for Charente-Maritime Deputies of the 16th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic

Early life

Early political career

See also

References