Didier Guillaume (born 11 May 1959) is a French politician who served as Minister of Agriculture and Food in the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

Édouard Philippe Édouard Charles Philippe (; born 28 November 1970) is a French politician serving as Mayor (France), Mayor of Le Havre since 2020, previously holding the office from 2010 to 2017. He was Prime Minister of France from 15 May 2017 to 3 July 2020 ...

from 2018 to 2020. A member 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 ...

until 2018, he was

President of the General Council In France, the President of the Departmental Council (French: ''Président du Conseil départemental'') is the locally elected head of the departmental council, the assembly governing a department in France. The position is elected by the depart ...

Drôme Drôme (; Occitan: ''Droma''; Arpitan: ''Drôma'') is the southernmost department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. Named after the river Drôme, it had a population of 516,762 as of 2019.

from 2004 to 2015, Senator for

from 2008 to 2018 and president of the

Socialist group The Socialists, Democrats and Greens Group (french: Groupe Socialiste, SOC) is a primarily social-democratic political grouping in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. It was known as the Socialist Group prior to August 2017. The ...

in the Senate from 2014 to 2018.

Early political career

In 2004, after his election as

, Guillaume resigned his post as

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...

Bourg-de-Péage Bourg-de-Péage (; Vivaro-Alpine dialect of oc, Lo Borg dau Peatge, ; ca, Lo Peatge de Pisançon) is a commune in the Drôme department in the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France. Its inhabitants are called ''Péageois''; in 2017, the popul ...

, which he had held since the 1995 municipal election. The town is the ''chef-lieu'' of the canton of Bourg-de-Péage, represented by Guillaume in the Drôme General Council from 1998 until 2015.

Senator for Drôme

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, Guillaume was elected to the Senate. He served as First Vice President of the Senate under the leadership of President

Jean-Pierre Bel Jean-Pierre Bel (born 30 December 1951) is a French retired politician who served as President of the Senate from 2011 to 2014. From the Ariège department, Bel is a member of the Socialist Party; he was elected to the Senate in September 1998 ...

from 2011 to 2014, when he became president of the

and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, as the right had won a majority at the 2014 election. After leaving the presidency of the Drôme General Council following the victory of The Republicans at the 2015 departmental election, he was succeeded by Patrick Kanner as group president in the Senate in 2018. Guillaume also worked as

Manuel Valls Manuel Carlos Valls Galfetti (, , ; born 13 August 1962) is a French-Spanish politician who has served as a Barcelona city councillor from 2019 to 2021. He served as Prime Minister of France from 2014 until 2016 under president François Hol ...

's campaign director in the Socialist Party's primaries for the 2017 presidential election.

Minister of Agriculture

Guillaume served as Minister of Agriculture and Food under

from 2018 to 2020, succeeding Stéphane Travert. After taking office, he vowed to take his decisions "in independence" from the industry lobbies. He stated he would run for Mayor of Biarritz in

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...

against fellow government member

Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (15 February 1704 – 1778) was a French sculptor of the 18th century who worked in both the rococo and neoclassical style. He made monumental statuary for the Gardens of Versailles but was best known for his expressive p ...

, but they both withdrew their candidacies before the election. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, Gulliaume called on unemployed citizens to help the country's farmers in their production process as seasonal foreign workers were absent. 50 000 people responded favourably.Mathieu Laurent, « Des volontaires nombreux pour « l’armée de l’agriculture » », '' La Croix'', 25 March 2020
lire en ligne
/ref> He was succeeded by

Julien Denormandie Julien Denormandie (born 14 August 1980) is a French engineer and politician of La République En Marche! (LREM) who served as Minister of Agriculture in the government of Prime Minister Jean Castex from 2019 to 2022. Denormandie was named Mini ...

and retired from politics.

References

Sources

Page on the Senate website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guillaume, Didier 1959 births Living people French Ministers of Agriculture French Senators of the Fifth Republic Vice-presidents of the Senate (France) People from Drôme Senators of Drôme Socialist Party (France) politicians Mayors of places in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes