Nicolas Dupont-Aignan

Following his failure to gather the 500 signatures necessary to run, Dupont-Aignan was reelected in his constituency of Essonne 8th though he was no longer a part of the presidential majority due to disagreements with President Sarkozy over taxes and a pro-American foreign policy, voting alongside the Socialist Party on several occasions.

Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (born 7 March 1961), sometimes referred to by his initials NDA, is a French politician serving since 2008 as president of the minor party Debout la France.

Nicolas Dupont-Aignan was born Nicolas Dupont on 7 March 1961, in Paris, the son of Jean-Louis Dupont, a wine maker and veteran of the Second World War who escaped a German POW camp, and Colette Aignan.

During his youth, Dupont-Aignan was a member of Rally for the Republic.

He campaigned for the Gaullist politician Jacques Chaban-Delmas during the 1974 presidential election.

Dupont-Aignan graduated from Sciences Po in 1982 and acquired his law license in 1984.

He received a postgraduate degree from Paris Dauphine University.

He also attended the École nationale d'administration, between 1987 and 1989.

Dupont-Aignan began his professional career in politics as a civil administrator and working in several ministerial offices, including that of the Minister of National Education and the Environment.

In the early 1990s, the city of Yerres was in 20 million euros in debt following the closure of a major aquatic centre that shut down a few months after its opening.

Dupont-Aignan joined Rally for France in 1993 and then began serving in Michel Barnier's ministry of the environment in February 1995 though he refused to support either Édouard Balladur or Jacques Chirac in their presidential campaigns that year.

Serving with Michel Barnier, Dupont-Aignan was friendly with multiple Europhile personalities such as Francois Bayrou.

In the 1995 municipal elections, Dupont-Aignan was elected with 51.8% of the vote against the then-Socialist mayor.

He is its only member in the National Assembly, having been elected for Essonne's 8th constituency beginning in 1997; he was previously mayor of Yerres from 1995 to 2017.

Dupont-Aignan was first elected to the National Assembly in 1997 as the member for Essonne's 8th constituency.

He has been reelected every legislative election since.

Following the creation of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Dupont-Aignan ran in the leadership election in 2002 and again in 2004, losing both.

Dupont-Aignan also campaigned for a "No" vote in the 2005 French European Constitution referendum, abandoning perceived Gaullist principles.

He was one of the only members of the UMP to vote "No".

A member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party until January 2007, he then founded the Gaullist and souverainist party Debout la France (DLF; "France Arise") in November 2008, named Debout la République until October 2014 and which is closely linked to the European political party Europeans United for Democracy.

Following disagreement with the UMP candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, Dupont-Aignan left the UMP on 13 January 2007.

Dupont-Aignan intended to run for the 2007 presidential election but failed to gather the necessary 500 signatures of elected officials.

He was also reelected in 2008 with 79.70% of the vote in the first round, giving him one of the biggest margins of victory for a mayor in France.

Shortly after becoming mayor, Dupont-Aignan attempted to fix the debt issue by renegotiating the interest rate with banks, he was able to lower the debt from 45 million euros to 34 million euros.

Dupont-Aignan took this further by cancelling infrastructure initiatives set by the previous mayor and developed a cheaper plan that included creating communal housing.

In terms of environmental policy, Dupont-Aignan used reprocessed swimming water to clean streets and his environmental policies won awards for the city.

A municipal police brigade that could patrol the forest areas was created and CCTV was upgraded.

Yerres had a lower crime rate than the rest of Essonne.

Dupont-Aignan eventually founded Debout la France on 23 November 2008 with the ambition of founding a third party that could compete with both the right wing UMP and left-wing Socialist Party who he labeled as being the "same".

Debout la France contested the 2009 European Parliament election, gaining 2.04% of the vote in Metropolitan France.

In November 2010, Dupont-Aignan announced his intention to run for the 2012 presidential election during the annual congress for France Arise, pledging to leave the Euro and return to the Franc, leaving the Euro as a reserve currency.

He ran for President of France in 2012, 2017, and 2022.

In March 2012 he announced that he had obtained the necessary 500 signatures to run as an official candidate.

Dupont-Aignan received 644,043 votes on the first ballot, or 1.79% of the votes cast, finishing seventh.

His best showing (24.88%) was in Yerres, of which he was mayor.

He did not endorse any candidate for the second round.

Dupont-Aignan announced his candidacy for the 2017 presidential election during an interview on TF1 on 15 March 2016.

Polls taken shortly after gave Dupont-Aignan a voting intention between 3 and 6%.

He endorsed the runner-up Marine Le Pen in the 2017 and 2022 second round elections.

On 7 March 2017, Dupont-Aignan secured the necessary 500 signatures to run in the 2017 presidential election before releasing his manifesto the following day in the form of a book.