Bruno Le Maire

Bruno Le Maire (born 15 April 1969) is a French politician, writer, and former diplomat who has served as Economy and Finance Minister since 2017 under President Emmanuel Macron.

Bruno Le Maire was born on 15 April 1969 in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

He is the son of Maurice Le Maire, an executive at the oil company Total, and Viviane Fradin de Belâbre, a headmistress of private Catholic schools, mainly Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague.

Le Maire was educated at Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague until he obtained his baccalauréat.

Le Maire began attending the École normale supérieure in 1989, and then Paris-Sorbonne University, where he studied French literature.

He graduated from Sciences Po in 1995, and was accepted into the École nationale d'administration (ÉNA) in 1996.

Bruno Le Maire is married to painter Pauline Doussau de Bazignan, who is the mother of his four sons.

After leaving the ÉNA in 1998, Bruno Le Maire found a job in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development.

He eventually joined the team assisting the Secretary General of the Office of the President, Dominique de Villepin.

He went on to a role of Foreign Affairs Advisor in the ministry in 2002, then onto an advisor role in the Interior ministry in 2004.

Following several roles in Government including one working directly with Dominique de Villepin, Le Maire was chosen to be political advisor to the Prime Minister.

In July 2006, Le Maire was appointed to the role of being Chief of Staff for the Prime Minister, replacing Pierre Mongin remaining in the role until Villepin's departure from the office of Prime Minister.

His wife was employed as his parliamentary assistant from 2007 to 2013.

Le Maire is fluent in French, English, Italian and German.

From 2007 to 2008, he was a member of the National Assembly of France, representing Eure's 1st constituency.

Le Maire is also a noted author, with his book Des hommes d'État winning the 2008 Edgar Faure Prize.

After becoming a political advisor to the UMP, Le Maire was appointed to be Secretary of State in charge of European Affairs, replacing Jean-Pierre Jouyet, in December 2008, serving until 2009.

From 2008, Le Maire served as a political advisor for the Union for a Popular Movement.

He also serves as a council member of Evreux.

In June 2009, Le Maire became the new Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fishing in the government of François Fillon.

During his tenure at the Ministry, he created a new framework to modernize French agriculture, food and fishing.

He also hosted the G20 Agriculture summit in 2011, which resulted in the creation of AMIS (Agricultural Market Information System).

The main objective of AMIS is to monitor the global agricultural market under a rotating presidency.

An intervention Forum can be convoked if the presiding country judges it necessary.

In August 2012, Le Maire announced that he would be a candidate for the presidency of the Union for a Popular Movement, competing against former Prime Minister François Fillon, Secretary General Jean-François Copé and former Minister of Ecology Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet.

He decided to develop a reformist line and to focus his campaign around four main axes:

He failed however to obtain the necessary number of sponsors.

In November 2014, Le Maire obtained 29.8% of votes against Nicolas Sarkozy in the election for the presidency of The Republicans (formerly UMP).

Le Maire was considered a serious challenger of the 2016 centre-right primary as the polls suggested he could be third-placed but got a poor result with 2.4%.

He became LR candidate François Fillon’s international affairs spokesman, but resigned when Fillon was embroiled in a financial scandal during his campaign.

Le Maire has since distanced himself from his party, calling for the right to work constructively with Macron to ensure the president's five years in office succeeds and prevents the far-right National Front making further electoral inroads.

A former member of The Republicans (LR), which he left in 2017 to join La République En Marche! (LREM), he was Secretary of State for European Affairs from 2008 to 2009 and Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fishing from 2009 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy.

On 17 May 2017, The Republicans Secretary-General Bernard Accoyer issued a statement that anyone from the party that was a member of the government was no longer a member, including Le Maire.

In May 2017, Le Maire was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron Minister of the Economy in the first Philippe government.

In this capacity, he is supported by Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin.

Shortly after being appointed as the Minister of the Economy, Le Maire became a member of La République En Marche! following conflicting reports that he was excluded from The Republicans party.

Le Maire was able to win reelection in his constituency after beating National Front candidate, Fabienne Delacour.

He was appointed Minister of the Economy and Finance in the second Philippe government on 19 June 2017.

By November 2017, Le Maire was reported to explore his options to succeed Jeroen Dijsselbloem as the next President of the Eurogroup; the role of which was eventually given to Mário Centeno of Portugal.

In 2019, he led the European Union's selection process for a European candidate to succeed Christine Lagarde as managing director of the International Monetary Fund.