Philippe Douste-Blazy

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Philippe Douste-Blazy (born on 1 January 1953) is the Foreign Minister of France in the cabinet of Dominique de Villepin.

Douste-Blazy is also a cardiologist and Christian Democrat politician from Lourdes. Formerly from the UDF party, he joined the Union for a Popular Movement. His principal former elected positions were mayor of Lourdes and mayor of Toulouse.

He studied medicine in Toulouse, where he had his first job in 1976. He then worked as a cardiologist in Lourdes and Toulouse, namely in Purpan's hospital from 1986. He then joined the French Society of Cardiology. He became Professor of Medicine in Toulouse Sciences University in 1988.

He entered politics in March 1989, being elected mayor of Lourdes and then Member of the European Parliament in June of the same year. He was then a member of the European People's Party. This year was also the one of his election as national director of the association of research against elevations of cholesterol.

At the end of 1993, he was made Minister-Delegate (a junior minister) at the Ministry for Health, after being elected Deputy in April. He stayed at this ministry until the 1995 presidential election. In March 1994, he was elected at Hautes-Pyrénées's General Council. He became general secretary of the French former political party CDS in December.

In January 1995, after the election of Jacques Chirac as President of the French Republic, a candidature he was backing, he was back as Minister of Health and Government's spokesman. Five months later, he became Minister of Culture. In June, he was also elected Mayor of Lourdes. By the end of November, he was elected general secretary of Force Démocrate.

In June 1997, the overwhelming defeat of Conservatives during general elections 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.

Douste-Blazy announced his support for the Israeli separation barrier on 25 October 2006.^[1]

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Preceded by Jacques Toubon	Minister of Culture 1995-1997	Succeeded by Catherine Trautmann
Preceded by Lionel Jospin	Minister of Education 1992-1993	Succeeded by François Bayrou
Preceded by Marie-Josée Roig	Minister of Family 29 November 2004- 2 June 2005	Succeeded by Xavier Bertrand
Preceded by Jean-François Mattéi	Minister of Health 31 March 2004 - 2 June 2005	Succeeded by Xavier Bertrand
Preceded by Michel Barnier	Minister of Foreign Affairs 2005 - present	Succeeded by -