Yaël Braun-Pivet (; born 7 December 1970) is a French lawyer and politician who has been President of the French National Assembly since 28 June 2022. The first woman to hold the position, she was re-elected on 18 July 2024 following the 2024 snap election.
A member of
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
(RE), she briefly previously was
Minister of the Overseas
The Minister of the Overseas () is the official in charge of the Ministry of the Overseas in the Government of the French Republic, responsible for overseeing Overseas France. The office was titled Minister of the Colonies (''Ministre des Col ...
under Prime Minister
Élisabeth Borne
Élisabeth Borne (; born 18 April 1961) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from May 2022 to January 2024. A member of President Emmanuel Macron's party Renaissance (French political party), Renaissance, she is the secon ...
from May to June 2022. She has been 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 repr ...
Yvelines
Yvelines () is a department in the western part of the ÃŽle-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207.Nancy in Eastern France. Her paternal grandparents were
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
- her grandfather was a Polish tailor while her grandmother was German - and had settled in France in the 1930s in order to escape
antisemitism
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, her grandfather received the French
Resistance Medal
The Resistance Medal (, ) was a decoration bestowed by the French Committee of National Liberation, based in the United Kingdom, during World War II. It was established by a decree of General Charles de Gaulle on 9 February 1943 "to recognize the ...
. Braun-Pivet's mother had grown up in care.
Braun-Pivet attended a Jewish school in
Strasbourg
Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...
and went on to study law at
Paris Nanterre University
Paris Nanterre University (), formerly University of Paris West, Paris-X and commonly referred to as Nanterre, is a public research university based in Nanterre, Hauts-de-Seine, France, in the Paris metropolitan area. It is one of the most pres ...
. After practising as a criminal lawyer for several years, she followed her husband, an executive with
, to Taiwan and Japan, where the two youngest of their five children were born. On their return to France in 2012, Braun-Pivet took up voluntary work with Restaurants du CÅ“ur (a French
charity
Charity may refer to:
Common meanings
* Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons
* Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sha ...
which distributes food to those in need), where she organised a free legal advice service.
Yvelines
Yvelines () is a department in the western part of the ÃŽle-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207.legislative election
A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections ...
in June 2017. That same month she was elected chair of the Law Committee. She led the work of the committee on a 2017 law regulating
conflict of interest
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates t ...
 among elected
official
An official is someone who holds an office (function or Mandate (politics), mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual Office, working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (eithe ...
s, which had been initiated as a consequence of the
Fillon affair
The Fillon affair (also the Penelope Fillon affair or Penelopegate) is a political-financial scandal involving immediate family members of French politician François Fillon being given paid jobs that involved no or very little actual work. The c ...
. In 2018, when she was chair of the inquiry into the
Benalla Affair
The Benalla affair () or Benalla affairs (''affaires Benalla'' or ''affaires Macron-Benalla'') are political and judicial cases involving Alexandre Benalla (), who served as a security officer and deputy chief of staff to President of France Em ...
, she was criticised for her refusal to summon
Alexis Kohler
Arnaud Alexis Michel Kohler (born 16 November 1972) is a French senior official and special adviser. A former director of the cabinet of Pierre Moscovici, then of Emmanuel Macron at the Ministry of Finance, he was appointed secretary general of th ...
, general secretary of the president's office, to give evidence. In September 2018, after
François de Rugy
François () is a French language, French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis (given name), Francis.
People with the given name
* François Amoudruz (1926–2020), French resistance fighter
* Voltaire, Fran ...
's appointment to the government, Braun-Pivet announced her candidacy for the presidency of the National Assembly; she eventually withdrew and instead endorsed
.
In February 2021, Braun-Pivet received the support of the entire National Assembly after being targeted by an email with anti-Semitic insults and threats; shortly after, the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation. Braun-Pivet was appointed Minister of Overseas Territories in May 2022 but stepped down a month later when she became President of the National Assembly following the
legislative election
A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections ...
. She was the first woman to hold the position. On 4 March 2024, Braun-Pivet became the first woman to preside over a joint session of the Assembly and Senate, overseeing the historic vote to inscribe the "freedom of women to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy" in the French constitution. On 9 June 2024, Macron dissolved the
French Parliament
The French Parliament (, ) is the Bicameralism, bicameral parliament of the French Fifth Republic, consisting of the Senate (France), Senate (), and the National Assembly (France), National Assembly (). Each assembly conducts legislative sessi ...
and announced a
snap election
A snap election is an election that is called earlier than the one that has been scheduled. Snap elections in parliamentary systems are often called to resolve a political impasse such as a hung parliament where no single political party has a ma ...
following defeat of his party in the
European elections
Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's.
Until 2019, 751 ...
. Braun-Pivet was doubtful about Macron's decision, suggesting that he could have considered forming a coalition instead. She retained her seat in the legislative election, winning 49.1% of the votes in the second round.
Braun-Pivet was re-elected as President of the National Assembly on 18 July 2024 after three rounds of voting by members. In the final round she won 220 votes, ahead of
New Popular Front
The New Popular Front ( , NFP) is a broad Left-wing politics, left-wing electoral alliance with centre-left politics, centre-left and far-left politics, far-left factions in France. It was launched on 10 June 2024 to contest the 2024 French leg ...
National Rally
The National Rally (, , RN), known as the National Front from 1972 to 2018 (, , FN), is a French far-right politics, far-right political party, described as right-wing populist and French nationalism, nationalist. It is the single largest Nat ...
against Braun-Pivet's re-election; the following day a similar appeal was lodged by
Marine Le Pen
Marion Anne Perrine "Marine" Le Pen (; born 5 August 1968) is a French lawyer and politician of the far-right National Rally, National Rally party (RN). She served as the party's president from 2011 to 2021, and ran for the French presidency in ...
.
Political positions
In July 2019, Braun-Pivet voted in favor of the French ratification of 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 ...
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
. In 2021, she proposed a new ad-hoc body to better supervise the government's decision-making process on the
COVID-19 pandemic in France
The COVID-19 pandemic in France has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths.
The virus was confirmed to have reached France on 24 January 2020, when the first COVID-19 case in both Europe and France was identified in Bordeaux. T ...
. Also in 2021, Braun-Pivet voted against the party line and instead supported draft legislation proposed by the
Liberties and Territories
Liberties, Independents, Overseas and Territories (, LIOT), formerly Liberties & Territories (, LT), is a Big tent, catch-all parliamentary group in the National Assembly (France), French National Assembly. It was formed on 17 October 2018, with ...
group aimed at legalising
assisted suicide
Assisted suicide, sometimes restricted to the context of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), is the process by which a person, with the help of others, takes actions to end their life.
Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifie ...