Vincent Benoît Camille Peillon (; born 7 July 1960) is a French politician who served as
Minister for Education in the
French Government
The Government of France ( French: ''Gouvernement français''), officially the Government of the French Republic (''Gouvernement de la République française'' ), exercises executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister, who ...
. He is a longstanding
French politician
The politics of France take place with the framework of a semi-presidential system determined by the French Constitution of the French Fifth Republic. The nation declares itself to be an "indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic". ...
and, from 2014 until 2019, served as a
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
(MEP) for
North West France (allied with 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 ...
and the
Party of European Socialists
The Party of European Socialists (PES) is a social democratic and progressive European political party.
The PES comprises national-level political parties from all member states of the European Union (EU) plus Norway and the United Kingdom ...
).
Early life and education
After a degree in Philosophy at
Panthéon-Sorbonne University (class of 1980), Peillon became a high school teacher (junior teaching qualification in 1984 and senior teaching qualification in 1986). He remained a teacher until 1992. He worked one year at
Henri Emmanuelli
Henri Emmanuelli (31 May 1945 – 21 March 2017) was a French politician. A member of the French Socialist Party, he was deputy for Landes from 1978 to 1981, from 1986 to 1997, and from 2000 to 2017.
Early life and career
Emmanuelli was born ...
staff at the
Assemblée nationale
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 ...
and resumed his teaching between 1993 and 1997. Peillon completed graduate studies at
Pantheon-Sorbonne University, graduating with a PhD in Philosophy in 1992. He was Senior Research Fellow at the
Centre national de la recherche scientifique
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science
Basic research, also called pure research o ...
between 2002 and 2004, working on ante-
marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
socialism.
Political career
Early career
* Secretary of the Socialist Party's group of experts (1993–94)
* Seconded to the First Secretary of the Socialist Party (1995–97)
* National research secretary of the Socialist Party (1997–2000)
* Member of the Socialist Party national bureau (since 1994)
Member of the National Assembly, 1997–2002
Peillon served as a Member of the
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...
from 1997 until 2002. During his time in office, he was the chairman of the
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...
's inquiry into money laundering (1999–2002). He also served as the Socialist Party's national spokesman (2000–02).
In a 2000 report co-authored with
Arnaud Montebourg
Arnaud Montebourg (; born 30 October 1962) is a French politician, lawyer and entrepreneur who served as the Minister of Industrial Renewal from 2012 to 2014,[Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...]
had lax policies with respect to
money laundering
Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...
, including within its famed casino, and that the government of Monaco had been placing political pressure on the judiciary, so that alleged crimes were not properly investigated. In a move to counter efforts by former Socialist Finance Ministers
Laurent Fabius
Laurent Fabius (; born 20 August 1946) is a French politician serving as President of the Constitutional Council since 8 March 2016. A member of the Socialist Party, he previously served as Prime Minister of France from 17 July 1984 to 20 Marc ...
and
Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn (; born 25 April 1949), also known as DSK, is a French economist and politician who served as the tenth managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and was a member of the French Socialist P ...
to recast the Socialist Party as centrist and market-friendly, Peillon joined Montebourg and
Julien Dray
Julien Dray (born 5 March 1955 in Oran, French Algeria) is a French politician. He is a member of the French Socialist Party, member of the regional council of Île-de-France and was a member of the National Assembly of France between 1988 a ...
in 2002 in writing an article for the newspaper ''
Libération
''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France's ...
'', saying the Socialists faced a "crisis of confidence" under its chairman
François Hollande
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...
. In a clear challenge to the party's free-market wing, the three called on Socialists to "fight more effectively and resolutely against the ferocity of the new capitalism and the excesses of deregulation."
In 2007, Peillon joined
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 2014 ...
's campaign team as a spokesperson, alongside
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem (; ar, link=no, نجاة فالو بلقاسم; Riffian-Berber: ⵏⴰⵊⴰⵜ ⴱⵍⵇⴰⵙⵎ; born 4 October 1977) is a former Moroccan- French jurist and politician of the Socialist Party (PS) who was the first Fr ...
and Montebourg.
Minister of Education, 2012–2014
After the election of
François Hollande
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...
, Vincent Peillon was appointed Minister of Education on May 16, 2012. The day after his nomination, he announced the end of the four-day week in primary education (introduced in 2008) for September 2013, and then the return to a five-day week. He also promised to recruit 40 000 new teachers in 2013.
Amid his government's plans for a legalization of same-sex marriage in 2013, Peillon caused a national debate when he called on Catholic schools, which teach about one-fifth of all pupils in France, to stay neutral in the debate.
Member of the European Parliament, 2014–2019
Peillon was again elected as
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
in the
2014 elections The following elections occurred in the year 2014.
* 2014 United Nations Security Council election 16 October 2014
Africa
* 2014 Algerian presidential election 17 April 2014
* 2014 Botswana general election 24 October 2014
* 2014 Comorian presi ...
; he and his Socialist colleagues gathered 14% of the votes. He joined the
Committee on Foreign Affairs. In addition to his committee assignments, he was a member of the parliament’s delegations for relations with the
Maghreb countries and the
Arab Maghreb Union
The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) or simply the Maghreb Union (MU) ( ar, اتحاد المغرب العربي ', french: Union du Maghreb Arabe) is a political union and economic union trade agreement aiming for economic and future political unity am ...
as well as to the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) is an international organization established in 2005 by the national parliaments of the countries of the Euro-Mediterranean region. It is the legal successor of the Conference on Security and ...
.
In 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 ...
's
primaries
Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the c ...
, Peillon ran to become the party's candidate in the
2017 French presidential election
The 2017 French presidential election was held on 23 April and 7 May 2017. As no candidate won a majority in the first round, a runoff was held between the top two candidates, Emmanuel Macron of En Marche! (EM) and Marine Le Pen of the Nationa ...
; he eventually lost against
Benoît Hamon
Benoît Hamon (; born 26 June 1967) is a French politician known for his former role within the Socialist Party (PS) and Party of European Socialists (PES) and his political party Génération.s.
Hamon joined the Socialist Party in 1988 and ...
.
[Lucy Williamson (January 21, 2017)]
France's Socialists open battle for party's future
''BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
''.
See also
*
Clearstream scandal The Clearstream affair was a political scandal in France in the run-up to the 2007 French presidential election, 2007 presidential election.
The name refers to the Luxembourg bank Clearstream, Clearstream Banking S.A, now wholly owned by Deutsche B ...
(with
Arnaud Montebourg
Arnaud Montebourg (; born 30 October 1962) is a French politician, lawyer and entrepreneur who served as the Minister of Industrial Renewal from 2012 to 2014,[underground economy
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...]
in
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
, of which a whole chapter was dedicated to Clearstream)
References
External links
Declaration of financial interests(in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
;
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
file)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peillon, Vincent
1960 births
Living people
MEPs for North-West France 2004–2009
MEPs for South-East France 2009–2014
Socialist Party (France) MEPs
French Ministers of National Education
People from Suresnes
MEPs for South-East France 2014–2019
French people of Jewish descent