Alain Juppé

Alain Juppé (born August 15, 1945) is a French politician; among other positions, he was Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997. In 2004 Juppé was convicted of mishandling public funds.

Early life

Alain Juppé was born in Mont-de-Marsan (Landes).

Education

• Lycée Victor-Duruy, in Mont-de-Marsan
• Preparatory classes at Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris
• Entered École normale supérieure (1964)
• Agrégation de lettres
• Institut d'études politiques de Paris (more widely known as Sciences Po) (1968)
• École nationale d'administration (1970-1972)
  

  Political career

Member of the National Assembly (as representative of Paris from 1986 to 1997, then representative of Gironde), he was elected Mayor of Bordeaux in 1995, succeeding former Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas.

Criminal conviction

The court commented:
:It is regrettable that at the time when the legislative body became aware of the need to end criminal practices which existed for the financing of political parties, Mr Juppé did not apply to his own party the very rules that he had voted for in Parliament.
:It is equally regrettable that Mr Juppé, whose intellectual qualities are unanimously recognized, did not judge appropriate to assume before Justice his entire criminal responsibility and kept on denying established facts.
:However, Mr Juppé has given himself for many years to the service of the State, while he did obtain no personal enrichment from these crimes he committed for the benefit of his political party, for which he should not be a scapegoat.[1]

Some commentators, such as Jean-Marc Ayrault, head of the National Assembly group of the Socialist Party, have argued that Juppé, in this judicial group, paid for a wider responsibility than his own.[1]

The long-term consequences of this sentence on Alain Juppé's career are yet unknown. Some law professors argue that the Versailles court could not legally exempt Juppé from a disposition of the Electoral Code (article L7) which bars any person sentenced for illegal taking of interests from being on an electoral roll for a period of 5 years, also preventing that person from running for office. Another disposition of the Electoral Code (article LO130) specifies that any person deprived of the right to be on an electoral roll for a certain period following a judicial sentence is deprived of the right of running for the French National Assembly for double that period, which would bar Juppé for 10 years. Should Juppé try to register again as a voter, other voters could sue in court to have his registration cancelled; also, should he be elected to national office, the Constitutional Council could cancel the election on grounds that Juppé was illegally registered as a voter. President Jacques Chirac could possibly use his right of pardon in favor of Juppé, but this would probably be politically disastrous. (Le Canard Enchaîné, December 22, 2004).

Alain Juppé has considered giving classes on public administration at a variety of prominent US and Quebec universities and colleges, including the UQÀM in Montreal, some of which were initially receptive to having a former prime minister be a member of their faculty. However, following Juppé's conviction, his appointment was considered inappropriate. (Le Canard Enchaîné, February 16, 2005)

Juppé's First Ministry, 18 May - 7 November 1995