Michel Rocard

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Michel Rocard

Prime Minister of France
In office 10 May 1988 – 15 May 1991
Preceded by	Jacques Chirac
Succeeded by	Édith Cresson

Born	23 August 1930 Courbevoie
Political party	Socialist

Michel Rocard (born 23 August 1930) is a French politician, member of the Socialist Party (PS). He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 1991, during which he created the Revenu minimum d'insertion (RMI), a social minimum welfare program for indigents. He is currently a member of the European Parliament.

[edit] Career

He was born at Courbevoie (Hauts-de-Seine) in a Protestant family, son of the nuclear physicist Yves Rocard, and entered politics as a student leader whilst studying at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. He became Chair of the French Socialist Students (linked to the SFIO socialist party), and studied at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration. A finance inspector (senior official) and anti-colonialist, he went to Algeria and wrote a report regarding the widely ignored refugee camps of the Algerian War of Independence. This report was leaked to the newspapers Le Monde and France Observateur in April 1959, almost costing Rocard his job.

Having left the SFIO because of its approval of the Algerian war, he led the dissident Unified Socialist Party (PSU) from 1967 to 1974. He took a part during the May 68 crisis, supporting the auto-gestionary project. He ran in the 1969 presidential election but obtained only 3,6% of votes. Some months later, he was elected deputy of Yvelines département in defeating the former Prime minister Maurice Couve de Murville. He lost his parliamentary seat in 1973, then re-conquested it in 1978.

In 1974, he joined François Mitterrand and the renewed Socialist Party (PS), which had replaced the old SFIO. Most of the PSU members and a part of the French and Democratic Confederation of Labour trade union - generally known in France as the non-Marxist, "Second Left" - followed him.

Elected mayor of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in 1977, he led the opposition to Mitterrand inside the Socialist Party (as a candidate of the right-wing of the party). After the unexpected defeat of the left at the 1978 legislative election, he tried to took the lead of the party. In despite of his alliance with Pierre Mauroy, the number 2 of the PS, he lost the Metz Congress (1979). Being the most popular of the Socialist politicians (included Mitterrand himself), he announced he run for president but failed his "Call of Conflans". Minoritary in the PS institutions, he rennounced. Mitterrand was the Socialist winning candidate for 1981 presidency.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, Michel Rocard's group inside the Socialist Party, known as "les rocardiens", advocated a re-alignment of French socialism through a clearer acceptance of the market economy, more decentralisation and less state control. It was largely influenced by Scandinavian Social Democracy, and stood in opposition to Mitterrand's initial agenda of nationalization. Nonetheless, the "rocardiens" always remained a minority.

Under Mitterrand's first presidency, he was Minister of Territorial Development and Minister of Planning from 1981 to 1983 and Minister of Agriculture from 1983 to 1985. He resigned from the cabinet in due to his opposition to the institution of the proportional system for the legislative elections. He hoped Mitterrand did not run for his re-election in order to be the PS candidate at the 1988 presidential election, in vain.

After Mitterrand's re-election, he was chosen as Prime Minister. Indeed, Rocard was popular and his position, in the right-wing of the PS, corresponded with the slogan of the electoral campaign, "united France". In this, his cabinet included 4 center-right ministers. As Prime Minister, he led the Matignon Accords regarding the status of New Caledonia, which ended the troubles in this overseas territory. His record in office also include a decrease in unemployment and a large-scale reform of the welfare state's financing system. He created a minimum living wage revenue. Michel Rocard's poor relations with François Mitterrand, notably during his mandate as Prime Minister, were notorious. Besides, he was supported by a relative parliamentary majority.

In 1991, when his popularity decreased, President Mitterrand forced him to resign. However, according to Mauroy, who led the party, Rocard stood the "natural candidate" for the following presidential elections. In this, after the 1993 electoral disaster, he became head of the PS in advocating a political "big-bang", that was to say a questioning of the right/left rift. His speech had any effects.

He stood leader of the Socialist Party during only one year. Indeed, the PS had its worst electoral result in the 1994 European Parliament election. The defeat was in part due to the success of the list of the Left Radicals Movement, which was covertly supported by President Mitterrand. Consequently, he was toppled by the left-wing of the party and lost his last chance to run for president the next year.

Having lost his seat in the French National Assembly in 1993, he was Senator of Yvelines from 1995 to 1997. His supporters within the Socialist Party became allies of candidate Lionel Jospin, who was Prime Minister in 1997-2002, and then Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Since 1999, he has been a member of the European Parliament, and was chairman of Foreign affairs, human rights and defense commission from 1999 to 2004. Michel Rocard is known for his hostility for the proposed directives to allow software patents in Europe, and has been an outspoken opponent of what he considers to be sneaky manoeuvres to force the decision on this issue. He has thus played an instrumental role in causing the rejection of the recent directive seeking to enforce software patents on 6 July 2005.

On the French political scene, Rocard presented him as the political heir of Pierre Mendès-France, knew for his moral rigour, and as the politician who "speak true". After Mittearrnd's death, he caused a polemic when he said, about the defunct president, "he was not an honest man". The impersonator mocked him for his problems of elocution.

[edit] Rocard's Ministry, 12 May 1988–15 May 1991

Michel Rocard - Prime Minister
Roland Dumas - Minister of Foreign Affairs
Edith Cresson - Minister of European Affairs
Jean-Pierre Chevènement - Minister of Defense
Pierre Joxe - Minister of the Interior
Pierre Bérégovoy - Minister of Economy, Finance, Budget, and Privatization
Roger Fauroux - Minister of Industry
Michel Delebarre - Minister of Employment and Social Affairs
Pierre Arpaillange - Minister of Justice
Lionel Jospin - Minister of National Education, Sport, Research, and Technology
Jack Lang - Minister of Culture and Communication
Henri Nallet - Minister of Agriculture and Forests
Maurice Faure - Minister of Housing and Equipment
Louis Mermaz - Minister of Transport
Jean Poperen - Minister of Relations with Parliament
Jacques Pelletier - Minister of Cooperation and Development
Paul Quilès - Minister of Posts, Telecommunications, and Space
Michel Durafour - Minister of Civil Service
Roger Fauroux - Minister of External Commerce
Louis Le Pensec - Minister of Sea

Changes

22-23 June 1988 - Michel Delebarre succeeds Mermaz as Minister of Transport and Le Pensec as Minister of Sea. The office of Minister of Social Affairs is abolished, but Claude Evin enters the ministry as Minister of Solidarity, Health, and Social Protection. Jean-Pierre Soisson succeeds Delebarre as Minister of Employment, becoming also Minister of Labour and Vocational Training. Louis Le Pensec becomes Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories. Jean-Marie-Rausch succeeds Fauroux as Minister of External Commerce. Hubert Curien succeeds Jospin as Minister of Research and Technology. Jospin remains Minister of National Education and Sport. Michel Durafour becomes Minister of Administrative Reforms as well as Minister of Civil Service.
28 June 1988 - Jack Lang becomes Minister of Great Works and Bicentenary in addition to being Minister of Culture and Communication.
22 February 1989 - Michel Delebarre succeeds Faure as Minister of Housing and Equipment, remaining also Minister of Transport.
2 October 1990 - The office of Minister of European Affairs is abolished. Henri Nallet succeeds Arpaillange as Minister of Justice. Louis Mermaz succeeds Nallet as Minister of Agriculture and Forests. The office of Minister of Bicentenary is abolished. Jack Lang remains minister of Culture, Communication and Great Works.
21 December 1990 - Michel Delebarre becomes Minister of City. Louis Besson succeeds Delebarre as Minister of Transport, Housing, Sea, and Equipment.
29 January 1991 - Pierre Joxe succeeds Chevènement as Minister of Defense. Philippe Marchand succeeds Joxe as Minister of the Interior.

[edit] External links

Preceded by —	Minister of Planning 1981–1983	Succeeded by —
Preceded by Fernand Icart	Minister of Territorial Development 1981–1983	Succeeded by —
Preceded by Edith Cresson	Minister of Agriculture 1983–1985	Succeeded by Henri Nallet
Preceded by Jacques Chirac	Prime Minister of France 1988–1991	Succeeded by Edith Cresson
Preceded by Laurent Fabius	First Secretary of the Socialist Party 1993–1994	Succeeded by Henri Emmanuelli