Roland Blum (born 12 July 1945 in

Les Pennes-Mirabeau Les Pennes-Mirabeau (; oc, Lei Penas de Mirabèu) is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France, located 13.5 km (8.4 mi) from Marseille. In May every year, a medieval festival attracts tens of thousands people ...

) is a French conservative politician and 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 ...

. He belongs to the

Union for a Popular Movement The Union for a Popular Movement (french: link=no, Union pour un mouvement populaire, ; UMP, ) was a centre-right political party in France that was one of the two major contemporary political parties in France along with the centre-left Social ...

(UMP).

Life and career

A former student of the

Institut d'études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...

(science political school), he was elected deputy on 16 June 2002 in the

Bouches-du-Rhône Bouches-du-Rhône ( , , ; oc, Bocas de Ròse ; "Mouths of the Rhône") is a department in Southern France. It borders Vaucluse to the north, Gard to the west and Var to the east. The Mediterranean Sea lies to the south. Its prefecture and large ...

. He was the first French deputy to interpellate the government on the subject of

Muhammad al-Durrah On 30 September 2000, the second day of the Second Intifada, 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah () was killed in the Gaza Strip during widespread protests and riots across the Palestinian territories against Israeli military occupation. Jama ...

, a child killed in the Palestinian territories and filmed and commented by

Charles Enderlin Charles Enderlin (born 1945) is a French-Israeli journalist, specialising in the Middle East and Israel. He is the author of a number of books on the subject, including ''Shamir, une biographie'' (1991), ''Shattered Dreams: The Failure of the Pea ...

France 2 France 2 () is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4 and France 5. France Télévisions also participates in Arte and Euronews. Since 3:20 CET on 7 ...

TV, claiming it was a fake. The investigation has shown that such was not the case, and France 2 has deposed a complaint against X (equivalent to

John Doe John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law enforcement in the United States, such names are often ...

) on charges of

defamation Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

. Following the request from Greens deputies

Noël Mamère Noël Mamère (born 25 December 1948 in Libourne, Gironde) is a French journalist and politician. He was the mayor of Bègles in Gironde as well as deputy to the French National Assembly for that constituency. He was for several years a member o ...

Martine Billard Martine Billard (born in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French politician and a deputy to the National Assembly of France. She is a member of the Parti de Gauche. Martine Billard entered politics in May 1968 with the "comité ...

and

Yves Cochet Yves Cochet (; born 15 February 1946) is a French politician, member of Europe Écologie–The Greens. He was minister in the government of Lionel Jospin. On 6 December 2011, he was elected member of the European Parliament (MEP). He studied M ...

on September 10, 2003, for the constitution of a Parliamentary Commission on the "role of France in the support of military regimes in Latin America from 1973 to 1984" before the Foreign Affairs Commission of the National Assembly, presided by

Édouard Balladur Édouard Balladur (; born 2 May 1929) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France under François Mitterrand from 29 March 1993 to 17 May 1995. He unsuccessfully ran for president in the 1995 French presidential election, comi ...

( UMP), a request made following the investigations carried on by journalist

Marie-Monique Robin Marie-Monique Robin (born 15 June 1960, Poitou-Charentes) is a French TV journalist and documentary filmmaker. She generally issues books and documentary films together on the topics she investigates, in order to make more people aware of the iss ...

, Roland Blum was nominated as responsible of the Commission. However, he refused to hear Marie-Monique Robin, and published in December 2003 a 12 pages report qualified by Robin as the summum of bad faith. It claimed that no military cooperation agreement had been signed between France and Argentina, despite the agreement found by Robin in the ''

Quai d'Orsay The Quai d'Orsay ( , ) is a quay in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is part of the left bank of the Seine opposite the Place de la Concorde. The Quai becomes the Quai Anatole-France east of the Palais Bourbon, and the Quai Branly west of th ...

'', which showed that French veterans of the

Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...

were in mission in Buenos Aires from 1959 to 1981.RAPPORT FAIT AU NOM DE LA COMMISSION DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES SUR LA PROPOSITION DE RÉSOLUTION (n° 1060), tendant à la création d'une commission d'enquête sur le rôle de la France dans le soutien aux régimes militaires d'Amérique latine entre 1973 et 1984, PAR M. ROLAND BLUM

French National Assembly 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 ...

Life and career

References

See also