Philippe Douste-Blazy

A member of the Centre of Social Democrats (CDS), the Christian Democrat component of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), Douste-Blazy entered politics in March 1989, being elected mayor of Lourdes. He was also elected national director of the association of research against elevations of cholesterol.

In the 1989 European elections, Douste-Blazy was elected Member of the European Parliament in June of the same year. He was then a member of the European People's Party.

During his time in parliament, Douste-Blazy served on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection. In addition to his committee assignments, he was a member of the parliament’s delegation to the Joint Assembly of the Agreement between the African, Caribbean and Pacific States (ACP countries) and the European Economic Community.

Elected deputy for Hautes-Pyrénées département in March 1993, Douste-Blazy was appointed to the cabinet of Edouard Balladur as Minister-Delegate (a junior minister) at the Ministry for Health.

In May 1994, in his capacity as minister, Douste-Blazy visited Rwanda and refugee camps in neighboring Tanzania to witness the consequences of the genocidal mass slaughter of Tutsi by members of Rwanda’s Hutu majority government.[1] During his time in office, France approved a bill which prohibited postmenopausal pregnancy, which Douste-Blazy said was "...immoral as well as dangerous to the health of mother and child."

Douste-Blazy stayed at the ministry until the 1995 presidential election. In March 1994, he was elected at Hautes-Pyrénées's General Council. He became general secretary of the CDS in December and Government's spokesman one month later.

In May 1995, after the election of Jacques Chirac as President of France, a candidacy he was backing, Douste-Blazy was nominated Minister of Culture. In June, he was also re-elected Mayor of Lourdes then, five months later, elected general secretary of Democratic Force, the party which replaced the CDS .

In June 1997, the overwhelming defeat of the Presidential Majority during legislative election made him lose his position as Minister of Culture, but he remained deputy of Hautes-Pyrénées and became president of the UDF parliamentary group at the French National Assembly. During the election campaign he was badly hurt when a mentally unstable man stabbed him in the back as he was campaigning in Lourdes. It turned out that the Minister's assailant was an Albanian refugee who had already tried to attack Mr Douste-Blazy in 1992.

At the head of the centrist parliamentary group, he was often opposed to the UDF party leader François Bayrou. Indeed, while this one advocated the emancipation of the UDF towards its Gaullist allies, Douste-Blazy proposed the union of the right-wing parties behind President Chirac.

Seeking one of the country's most important municipal seats,[2] Douste-Blazy narrowly won the election for Mayor of Toulouse in 2001, which saw the left making its best showing in decades. Once in office, he had to deal with a reinvigorated political opposition, as well as with the dramatic explosion of the AZF plant in late 2001.

Douste-Blazy supported Jacques Chirac in the two rounds of the 2002 presidential election, in spite of the candidacy of François Bayrou. Consequently, he participated to the unification of some right-wing groups in the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and appeared as a possible Prime Minister. However, once re-elected, President Chirac choose Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Philippe Douste-Blazy refused to resign from its mayoralty to be minister. The same year, he changed of constituency and was elected deputy for Haute-Garonne département.

After the electoral crash of the UMP in the 2004 regional election, Douste-Blazy left its function in Toulouse and returned at the Ministry of Health. His predecessor Jean-François Mattéi was discredited due to his behaviour during the Summer 2003 heatwave crisis. He was the instigator of a new reform of medical insurances.

In a government reshuffle following the rejection of the European constitution in 29 May 2005's referendum, Douste-Blazy replaced Michel Barnier[3] and became Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

In his capacity as minister, Douste-Blazy summoned Iran's ambassador to France in October 2005, demanding an explanation for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 's public call for Israel to be "wiped off the map."[4] He announced France’s support for the Israeli separation barrier on 25 October 2006.[5] In November 2006, he summoned Israel's ambassador to Paris, Daniel Shek to express "serious concern" about violations of a ceasefire that ended the 33-day war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.[6]

During his time in office, France played a central role in international attempts to end the bloodshed in the 2006 Lebanon War.[7] In October 2006, the French National Assembly, despite Douste-Blazy’s opposition,[8] passed a bill which if approved by the Senate and would make Armenian Genocide denial a crime.[9]

Douste-Blazy left the position with the departure of Jacques Chirac from the Presidency in May 2007. He did not run for a new parliamentary term in the 2007 elections.

On 6 November 2007, Douste-Blazy was among the guests invited to the state dinner hosted by President George W. Bush in honor of President Nicolas Sarkozy at the White House.[10]