Sylvie Goulard

Sylvie Goulard
Minister of the Armed Services
In office
17 May 2017  19 June 2017
Prime Minister Édouard Philippe
Preceded by Jean-Yves Le Drian
Succeeded by Florence Parly
Member of the European Parliament
In office
25 June 2014  17 May 2017
Constituency South-East France
In office
7 June 2009  25 June 2014
Constituency West France
Personal details
Born (1964-12-06) 6 December 1964
Marseille, France
Political party MoDem (Before 2016)
REM (2016–present)
Spouse(s) Guillaume Goulard
Children 3
Alma mater Aix-Marseille University
Institute of Political Studies,
Paris

National School of
Administration, Strasbourg

Sylvie Goulard (born 6 December 1964 in Marseille) is a French politician. She was appointed Minister of the Armed Services on 17 May 2017, in the First Government of Edouard Philippe; already on 20 June 2017, she decided to quit the government amid the investigation into the MoDem's potentially fictitious employment of parliamentary assistants initiated earlier that month. On 17 January 2018, Goulard was appointed deputy governor of the Bank of France, replacing Anne Le Lorier.[1]

Before returning to national politics, Goulard served as a Member of the European Parliament for the West region of France from 2009 until 2017. She was reelected in 2014 for the South-East region of France. As an MEP she was a member of the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs, and ALDE group coordinator, as well as a substitute member of the Committee for Constitutional Affairs. In 2010 she participated in the creation of the Euro-federalist interparliamentarian Spinelli Group. She served as a foreign affairs advisor, and former president of the Mouvement européen-France, the oldest pluralist association defending the European ideal.

In 2016, Goulard joined the newly formed En Marche! party.[2]

Early life and education

Goulard graduated with a law degree from the Université Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille III and studied at both Sciences Po (Paris) and the Ecole nationale d'administration (ENA). Between 2005 and 2009 she taught at the College of Europe in Bruges. She speaks fluent English, German and Italian.

Career

As a political advisor to Romano Prodi when he was President of the European Commission, from 2001 to 2004, Goulard followed the work of the Convention presided by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing which was primarily made up of members of national parliaments, who had been charged by the European Council to draft a European constitution.

Goulard's work focuses on the necessity of pursuing European integration whilst also inviting increased public debate about European questions. Europe's citizens must become more engaged with its development in the future. They need to be informed and active: and to achieve this cultural and professional exchanges and learning foreign languages are essential.

At the end of 2006 Goulard was elected president of the Mouvement Européen-France (ME-F), succeeding Pierre Moscovici, who had also been a candidate. She was re-elected as president in December 2008. Le Mouvement Européen-France regularly organises meetings, conferences and debates which aim are to enable a dialogue between political figures, experts and the general public.

Member of the European Parliament, 2009—2017

Goulard was first elected Member of the European Parliament in the 2009 elections. Throughout her time in parliament, she served on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. In 2014, she joined as substitute the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. In that capacity, she served as rapporteur on budgetary surveillance in the Eurozone.

In addition to her committee assignments, Goulard served as chairwoman of the European Parliament Intergroup on “Extreme Poverty and Human Rights”.

On 15 September 2010, Goulard supported the new initiative Spinelli Group, which was founded to reinvigorate the strive for federalisation of the European Union (EU). Other prominent supporters are: Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Guy Verhofstadt, Isabelle Durand as well as Jacques Delors, Joschka Fischer, Andrew Duff and Elmar Brok.

In November 2016, Goulard officially announced her candidacy for the office of President of the European Parliament;[3] the post eventually went to Antonio Tajani.

During her time in parliament, Goulard continued to write regularly in a wide range of both French (Le Monde, La Croix, Libération) and international (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Financial Times particularly) newspapers.

Minister of the Armed Services, 2017

Goulard was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron Minister of the Armed Services on 17 May, in the First Government of Edouard Philippe. In this capacity, she ranked above her immediate predecessor and foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in the government hierarchy. She was only the second woman to head the ministry, which reverted to its pre-1974 name of Ministry of the Armed Forces.[4] Goulard was replaced by Florence Parly, a former executive and budget official, in the 21 June government reshuffle.[5] She had stepped down after an inquiry over alleged misuse of payments for assistants in the European Parliament[6] was opened on 20 June 2017.[7]

Other activities

Political positions

Goulard, a centrist, strongly supports NATO and the European Union, and holds hawkish views against the regimes of Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In 2004, before accession discussions were opened with Turkey, Goulard had taken a position in the debate concerning the eventual enlargement of the European Union to include this country by underlining the necessity of preserving the European Union's political ambitions and its capacity to act. She also called for doubts expressed by citizens facing a European venture, whose direction they do not properly understand, to be taken seriously.

Following the 2014 elections, Goulard joined fellow MEPs Othmar Karas, Sven Giegold, Sophie in 't Veld and Alessia Mosca in an open letter aimed at exerting pressure on the President of the European Commission and national government leaders during the nominations process to improve the gender balance in the composition of the European Commission.[10]

Personal life

She is married to Guillaume Goulard, councilor of state, and is mother of three children.

Bibliography

  • Le Grand Turc et la République de Venise, Fayard, 2004 Prix du livre pour l’Europe 2005.
  • Le Partenariat privilégié, alternative à l’adhésion en collaboration avec Rudolf Scharping, Karl Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg, Pierre Defraigne, Carlo Altomonte, Lucas Delattre, Note bleue de la Fondation Schuman no 38, 6 décembre 2006
  • Le Coq et la Perle, Seuil, février 2007
  • L'Europe pour les nuls, First, 2007 ; 3e édition, 2014 Prix du Livre européen de l'essai 2009.
  • Il faut cultiver notre jardin européen, Seuil, juin 2008
  • La Mondialisation pour les Nuls, de Francis Fontaine avec Brune de Bodman et Sylvie Goulard, First, 2010
  • De la démocratie en Europe, avec Mario Monti, Flammarion, 2012
  • Europe : amour ou chambre à part, Flammarion, 2013, coll. « Café Voltaire »
  • Goodbye Europe, Flammarion, 2016

References

  1. "Sylvie Goulard appointed deputy governor at Banque de France". Politico Europe. 2018-01-17. Retrieved 2018-01-17.
  2. Sébastien Le Fol (28 November 2016), Sylvie Goulard veut réveiller le Parlement européen Le Point.
  3. John Irish (17 May 2017), Macron emphasises EU in French foreign, defence ministry postings Reuters.
  4. "Macron reshuffles Cabinet, boosts women to top posts". France 24. AP. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  5. Anne-Sylvaine Chassany and Claire Jones (January 17, 2017), Financial Times.
  6. "French defence minister quits over new EU fake jobs inquiry". France 24. AP. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  7. Strategic Advisory Board French Institute of International Relations (IFRI).
  8. Advisory Group New Pact for Europe.
  9. Cynthia Kroet (26 June 2014), A shortage of women round the Commission table European Voice.
Political offices
Preceded by
Jean-Yves Le Drian
Minister of the Armed Forces
2017
Succeeded by
Florence Parly
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.