Virginie Rozière (; born 18 June 1976) is a French politician of the

Radical Party of the Left The Radical Party of the Left (, PRG) is a social-liberal political party in France. A party in the Radical tradition, since 1972 the PRG has been a close ally of the major party of the centre-left in France, the Socialist Party (, PS). Af ...

(PRG) who served as a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

(MEP) from 2014 until 2019.

Early life and education

Born in

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

, Rozière graduated from

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

in 2000. She also has a third dan black belt in

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, combat sport, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyc ...

Early career

After graduating, Rozière worked for the

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

. From 2010 to 2012 she worked in the European Parliament, then returned to France and worked as Deputy Director in the Ministry for Crafts, Trade, and Tourism under Sylvia Pinel.

Political career

In 2013, 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 ...

(PS) and the PRG, led by Pinel, came to an agreement where members of the PRG could run under the PS banner in the upcoming 2014 parliamentary elections. In the elections in May 2014, Rozière won 15.73% of the vote in South-West France, and was elected to the European Parliament, the only PRG member to do so. In parliament, Rozière served on the

Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) is a Committees of the European Parliament, committee of the European Parliament. Work of the committee The committee is responsible for: * Coordination at Community level of na ...

and the

Committee on Petitions The Committee on Petitions (PETI) is a permanent committee of the European Parliament to offer a petition process including a web portal to create and admit petitions. Its current chair, elected on 10 July 2019, is Dolors Montserrat, member of the ...

, and is a member of the

Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) is the Political groups of the European Parliament, political group in the European Parliament of the Party of European Socialists (PES). The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and ...

in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

. In this capacity, she served as

rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...

on legislation to protect

whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

s in the aftermath of scandals such as LuxLeaks or the

Panama Papers The Panama Papers () are 11.5 million leaked documents (or 2.6 terabytes of data) published beginning April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. These document ...

. In December 2017, the PRG merged with the Radical Party to form the Radical Movement. Rozière and spoke in opposition to the merger, and instead chose to leave the PRG and form a new party, (LRDG, the "Left Radicals"). Before the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 23 and 26 May 2019. It was the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) we ...

, LRDG at first found an agreement for a common candidacy with PS and Place Publique. However, shortly after the PRG cancelled the merger in March 2019, LRDG dropped from the candidate lists and Rozière did not stand for reelection, citing PRG influence on PS for the failure of the common candidacy.

Political positions

In the

primaries Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pri ...

, Rozière endorsed Sylvia Pinel as the party's candidate in the

2017 French presidential election Presidential elections were held in France on 23 April and 7 May 2017. Incumbent president François Hollande of the Socialist Party (France), Socialist Party (PS) was eligible to run for a second term, but declared on 1 December 2016 that he wo ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rozière, Virginie 1976 births Living people Radical Party of the Left MEPs MEPs for South-West France 2014–2019 21st-century women MEPs for France École Polytechnique alumni