Cécile Duflot

Cécile Duflot

Cécile Duflot in 2012
Member of the French National Assembly for Paris
Assumed office
20 June 2012
Preceded by Danièle Hoffman-Rispal
Minister of Territorial Equality and Housing (French: Ministre de l’Egalité des Territoires et du Logement)[1]
In office
16 May 2012 – 2 April 2014
President François Hollande
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault
Preceded by Benoist Apparu
Succeeded by Sylvia Pinel
National Secretary of Europe Ecology – The Greens
In office
16 November 2006 – 30 November 2013
Preceded by Yann Wehrling
Personal details
Born (1975-04-01) 1 April 1975
Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, France
Nationality French
Political party Europe Ecology – The Greens
Alma mater Paris Diderot University
ESSEC Business School

Cécile Duflot (French pronunciation: ​[se.sil dy.flo]; born 1 April 1975 in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, Val-de-Marne)[2] is a French politician. She was Minister of Territorial Equality and Housing (French: Ministre de l’Egalité des Territoires et du Logement)[1] in the Ayrault Cabinet. Until June 2012, she was Party Secretary (i.e. leader) of Europe Ecology – The Greens, a position she held from November 2006 and was, with Jean-Luc Bennahmias, the only Green leader to have served two consecutive terms (although Dominique Plancke served three non-consecutive ones). In May 2012 she announced her resignation from this role.

Biography

The eldest daughter of a railway unionist and a physics and chemistry teacher (who was herself also a unionist),[3] Cécile Duflot spent her childhood and adolescence in the district of Montereau-Fault-Yonne before returning to her native town, Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, in the early 1990s. She is a town planner by profession, a graduate of the ESSEC Business School (French Business School), and holds a master's degree in Geography.[2]

Her first activist commitments were in the Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne ("Young Christian Workers")[4] and the Ligue pour la protection des oiseaux ("Birds' Protection League").[5]

A divorcee,[6] Cécile Duflot is the mother of three girls and a boy in a step-family.[7]

Political career

After joining The Greens in 2001, she stood in the municipal elections at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges that same year.[8] She became an opposition municipal councillor in the town in June 2004.[3]

Duflot in 2010

In 2003, she joined the electoral college of the Greens;[3] she organised the acquisition of their national headquarters.[4] She became spokesperson for the party in January 2005. That same year on World Water Day, she swam in the Seine in Paris with three other members of the electoral college to denounce river pollution in France and to match Jacques Chirac's promise, when he was Mayor of Paris, to swim in the Seine.[9]

On 16 November 2006 she was elected National Secretary of the Conseil National Inter Régional, succeeding Yann Wehrling.[8] At the age of 31, she was the youngest-ever National Secretary of the Greens.[8]

At the end of 2006, she stood for the party's primary to nominate its presidential candidate for the French presidential election, 2007. Earning 23.29% of the vote, she came third after Dominique Voynet and Yves Cochet, and did not qualify for the second round.

In the 2007 legislative elections, she was the Green Party candidate in the third district of Val-De-Marne and gained 3.55% of the vote.

In March 2008 during the municipal elections at Villeneuve-St-Georges, she came in second place on a unified ticket of the PS, the MRC, the PRG and the Greens after socialist Laurent Dutheil.[10] The ticket earned 24.36%.

On 6 December 2008, introducing a motion synthesizing four of the six activists' voting slips three weeks earlier, she was re-offered the post of National Secretary of the Greens with 70.99% of the votes.[11] With Jean-Luc Benhamias, she is the only secretary to be offered a second consecutive term,[2] Dominique Plancke having completed three terms of one year.[12]

During her first term, she worked to establish Europe Écologie[2] for the European Elections of 2009.[13] She is not eligible as a candidate for this now, preferring instead to focus on her mandate as National Secretary.[14]

In 2010, she along with Monica Frassoni, Renate Künast, and Marina Silva were named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers,[15] for taking Green mainstream.

In August 2014, she voiced criticisms of the French government, particularly of President François Hollande, stating that, "...wanting to be a leftist president, he never found his social base nor his supporters. This is not a question of temperament, rather it is the result of a succession of often unexpected choices, which are sometimes inconsistent with each other." [16]

As Minister

The position of Minister of Housing was offered to her in the Ayrault government of the Hollande presidency, which began in May 2012. One of her tasks was to promulgate a law on social housing. Her first effort, announced 11 September of that year, failed in October,[17] causing embarrassment to the Prime Minister.[18] The loi Duflot replaced the fr:Loi Scellier on 18 January 2013.[19][20]

The loi Alur (Accès au logement et urbanisme rénové) restricted landlord-tenant relations in exchange for favourable financial treatment.[21][22] It passed on 20 February 2014.[23][24]

Main political offices

The French political system allows one person to hold multiple political offices. The electoral promise of Francois Hollande to terminate what is known as Cumul des mandats has not, as of March 2014, been fulfilled.

References

Translator's note: These are in French.

  1. 1 2 (French) Ministre de l’Egalité des Territoires et du Logement (official French government web site for the Ministry)
    (French) Ministre de l’Egalité des Territoires et du Logement (French Wikipedia)
  2. 1 2 3 4 (French) Catherine Simon, « Cécile Duflot, l'ouverture en Vert », Le Monde, 20 January 2009
  3. 1 2 3 (French) « Numéro vert » by Sabrina Champenois, Libération, 10 January 2007
  4. 1 2 (French) Dossier de presse : « Présentation des candidat(e)s Vert(e)s en Basse-Normandie » PDF (238 KB) (2007 legislative elections), on the official site of the Verts de Basse-Normandie
  5. ↑ (French) « Elle s'enracine chez les Verts », Ouest-France, 8 December 2008
  6. ↑ (French) « Portrait de Cécile Duflot » PDF on the website for the Verts de Loire-Atlantique
  7. ↑ Stepfamily
  8. 1 2 3 (French) Marie Quenet, « Duflot, l'inconnue réélue », Le Journal du Dimanche, 7 December 2008
  9. ↑ (French) Matthieu Durand, « Les Verts se baignent dans la Seine » on the official site for La Chaîne Info, 22 March 2005
  10. ↑ (French) Liste « Villeneuve en mouvement » au premier tour des élections municipales de 2008 sur le site officiel du ministère de l'Intérieur
  11. ↑ (French) « Cécile Duflot réélue secrétaire nationale des Verts », Le Nouvel observateur, 6 décembre 2008
  12. ↑ Yves Frémion, 2007
  13. ↑ (French) « Profil de Cécile Duflot » sur le site officiel d'Europe Écologie
  14. ↑ (French) Rodolphe Geisler, « Duflot : "Les Verts ont encore une raison d'être" », Le Figaro, 5 December 2008
  15. ↑ http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/29/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=0,30
  16. ↑ Berdah, Arthur. "Pour Cécile Duflot, «Hollande n'est le président de personne»". www.lefigaro.fr. Le Figaro. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  17. ↑ lefigaro.fr: "Loi Duflot censurée : chronique d'un «bug» annoncé" 25 Oct 2012
  18. ↑ lefigaro.fr: "La bévue d'Ayrault affaiblit encore son autorité" 25 Oct 2012
  19. ↑ legifrance.fr: " LOI n° 2013-61 du 18 janvier 2013 relative à la mobilisation du foncier public en faveur du logement et au renforcement des obligations de production de logement social" 18 Jan 2013
  20. ↑ courrierdesmaires.fr: "Logement social : les principaux points de la loi « Duflot », nouvelle version" (AFP) 19 Jan 2013
  21. ↑ lefigaro.fr: "L'encadrement des loyers de Cécile Duflot jugé inefficace" 25 Oct 2013
  22. ↑ Anne-Hélène Pommpier, « Ce que prévoit le projet de loi Alur », in Le Figaro, lundi 30 septembre 2013, page 26.
  23. ↑ legifrance.fr: "Dossiers législatifs - Projet de loi pour l’accès au logement et un urbanisme rénové"
  24. ↑ "La loi Duflot sur le logement adoptée : ce qui va changer" 20 Feb 2014

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cécile Duflot.

Translator's note: These are in French.

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