Biography
After attending high school, which he graduated from in his hometown, Raffarin enrolled in law in Paris-Assas and at the "Ecole Supérieure de Commerce", a renowned higher business school in the French capital. He obtained a business diploma and joined the marketing department of the company "Cafés Jacques Vabre" in 1973, where he worked until 1976. In 1977, Raffarin began his party political career as deputy general secretary and member of the Political Bureau of the Republican Party. In the same year he was elected to the Poitiers city council, where he remained represented until 1995.
From 1976 to 1981, Raffarin worked as an economic policy advisor in the office of the French Minister of Labor. At the same time, from 1978 to 1995 he remained loyal to the free economy as president of the "Créditimmobilienr Rural de la Vienne". Raffarin also worked as a lecturer at the "Institut d'Études Politiques" in Paris from 1979 to 1988. From 1981 to 1988 he also headed "Bernard Krief Communication" as general director. In 1988/89 Raffarin worked as general representative at the "Euro-92 Institute". From 1986 to 1988 Raffarin was a member of the regional council and from 1988 president of the regional council of Poitou-Charentes. He also sat in the European Parliament from 1989 to 1995. From 1993 to 1995, Raffarin continued to act as deputy general secretary and spokesman for the "Union pour la Démocratie Française" (UDF), of which he was promoted to general secretary in 1995.
From 1994 to 1998 he also headed the "Arc Atlantique" commission. In 1995, Raffarin took on his first senior government position as Minister for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Trade and Crafts, where he served until 1997. In 1995 he was also elected to the Senate of the French Republic for Vienne. At the same time, Raffarin served as deputy mayor of Chasseneuil-du-Poitou from 1995 to 2001. In 1997 he was promoted to vice-president of the Liberal Democratic Party. From 1998 to 2002 he was president of the "Association des régions de France". After the early resignation of the socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, an interim government was set up on May 6, 2002 under the Liberal Democrat Raffarin, which served until the subsequent parliamentary elections in June 2002.
In the elections of June 9 and June 16, 2002, the "Démocratie Libérale" won a victory, so that President Jacques Chirac nominated Raffarin as the new Prime Minister of the French Republic. During the subsequent legislative period, France took a clearly negative position in the foreign policy area under Raffarin's government in the UN Security Council against the Iraq war triggered by US and British troops in March 2003. Internally, the Raffarin government suffered a significant loss of confidence due to the heat victims of August 2003: As a result of the pan-European heat wave, several thousand mostly elderly people died in France due to a lack of care.
Raffarin then developed the social policy program "Age and Solidarity", which is intended to improve care for the elderly and disabled in the republic. In this context, at the end of October 2003, the government also announced the abolition of public holidays, such as Whit Monday, to finance utility services. In mid-March 2005, Raffarin, together with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and politicians, inaugurated the converted Jad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel. At the end of April 2005, as part of the Franco-German understanding, Raffarin met with his counterpart Gerhard Schröder and the French President Jacques Chirac for the 5th Franco-German Council of Ministers.
On May 29, 2005, the French referendum on the European Constitution, which was negative, triggered a crisis in the Paris government. Prime Minister Raffarin then resigned from his office. On May 31, 2005, French President Jacques Chirac appointed the previous Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin as his successor as head of government.
Jean-Pierre Raffarin has been married to Anne-Marie Perrier since 1980, with whom he has one child.
